skin cancer

Combining therapies for melanoma that induce cell senescence and that activate the immune response may improve outcomes for patients.

Lindsay Ramsey Smith, MSN, R.N., a quality consultant for the Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC), recently uncovered some interesting data that sparked a center-wide improvement project.

Nearly half of all patients with malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, have a mutation in the BRAF gene found in their tumors. Mutations in the BRAF gene turn on a cancer growth switch known as the MAP kinase pathway.

Soldiers who served in the glaring desert sunlight of Iraq and Afghanistan returned home with an increased risk of skin cancer, due not only to the desert climate, but also a lack of sun protection, Vanderbilt dermatologist Jennifer Powers, M.D., reports in a study published recently in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Melanoma patients whose tumors test positive for mutations in the NRAS gene were more likely to benefit from new immunotherapy drugs, according to a new study led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators.

Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer, with high mortality rates. While new drugs have been approved to treat the disease, patients nearly always develop resistance to the therapies and the cancer advances.

The activity of a certain factor in immune cells is essential for an anti-tumor response, emphasizing the need to consider the effects of anti-cancer therapies on immune cells.