Topical treatment clears precancerous skin lesions
A combination of two FDA-approved drugs — a topical chemotherapy and an immune system-activating compound — was able to rapidly clear actinic keratosis lesions from patients participating in a clinical trial. Standard treatment for this common skin condition, which can lead to the development of squamous cell carcinoma, takes up to a month and can elicit several unpleasant side effects. The report from Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has been published online and will appear in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. “The high tumor-clearance rate, short treatment duration, and favorable side-effect profile highlight the remarkable effectiveness of this approach, compared with currently available treatments,” says Shadmehr Demehri of the MGH Center for Cancer Immunology and the Cutaneous Biology Research Center (CBRC), senior author of the report. “But more importantly, the unprecedented ability of this combination therapy to directly activate the adaptive immune system against skin cancer...