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1st appeared
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May 2000 Raising Awareness About Melanoma The challenge of finding effective treatments for melanoma is more than skin deep. "What makes melanoma so frustrating for physicians and patients is it’s the kind of cancer that doesn’t respond to chemotherapy as well as some other cancers do," says Mohammed Kashani-Sabet, co-director of UCSF Melanoma Center and assistant clinical professor of dermatology. "That’s why it has us scurrying for treatment options." To raise awareness about this deadly form of skin cancer, the UCSF Melanoma Center hosted an educational conference earlier this month as part of Melanoma Awareness Month. More than 100 people packed into Mount Zion’s Herbst Hall to learn about melanoma, treatments for the disease and to hear from patients living with melanoma. The forum was also an opportunity to publicly acknowledge Roma Auerback, who made a donation to the UCSF Cancer Center in memory of her late husband Marvin Auerback, who died from the disease. Her gift helped create the Marvin and Roma Auerback Melanoma Research Laboratory, located in the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center research building. Researchers in the Auerback laboratory are developing a genetic diagnostic test for melanoma and targeted therapies for advanced melanoma. Melanoma is a skin cancer that begins in the melanocytes, the cells that produce skin pigment known as melanin. Early warning signs that ordinarily occur in sequence are darkening of an existing mole, an increase in its size, irregularity of its margins and an elevation of the lesion. Though it accounts for only 4 percent of all skin cancer cases, melanoma is responsible for 79 percent of all skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Moreover, the incidence of melanoma is rising faster than any other cancer in the US population. About 7,700 people across the nation are expected to die of melanoma this year, according to ACS. Those most at risk are fair-skinned people and those who expose themselves to ultraviolet light – leading to a serious case of sunburn. See risk factors. To help prevent and reduce the risk of melanoma caused by UV radiation, people should avoid exposure to the midday sun, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., whenever possible. Doctors recommend using sunscreens with a sun protection factor of 30 or higher to provide high protection against sunburn, wearing hats, and sunglasses that have UV-absorbing lenses. The good news is that melanoma is almost always curable in its early stages. "Therefore, early diagnosis and surgical treatment remain the best strategies for successful management of this disease," Kashani-Sabet says. But once melanoma has metastasized, or spread from the skin to distant organs, physicians must use other treatment options, including chemotherapy. But chemotherapy shrinks only 15 to 40 percent of all tumors, Kashani-Sabet explains. "It’s a platform therapy that needs to be improved or maybe even replaced." UCSF physicians are also using immunotherapy for advanced melanoma. Immunotherapy helps the immune system to see and kill cancer cells. "It’s recruiting the immune system to recognize and destroy tumors, like a search and destroy mission in the entire body," Kashani-Sabet explains. UCSF physicians administer immunotherapy drugs interferon alpha and interleukin-2, proteins that activate the immune system. Both drugs can shrink metastatic melanomas in about 10 to 20 percent of patients, according to the ACS. UCSF investigators also are using chemo-immunotherapy for treatment of advanced disease. This aggressive practice combines chemotherapy and immunotherapy, shrinking 50 to 60 percent of all tumors. Links: Genetic Test for Melanoma Developed Melanoma Patients' Sentinel Lymph Nodes Play Strong Role in Disease Prognosis, UCSF Study Finds Immunotherapy Shows Promise in Battling Deadly Melanoma Source: Leslie Harris, News Services
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