Immunotherapy reduced risk of skin cancer development by almost 75 percent
A treatment previously shown to clear the precancerous skin lesions called actinic keratosis now appears to reduce the chance that the treated skin will develop squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), the second-most-common form of skin cancer. In a paper being published online in JCI Insight, a team led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigator reports that treatment with a combination of two FDA-approved drugs — a topical chemotherapy and an immune-system-activating compound — reduced the risk of SCC development on the face and scalp by almost 75 percent. “This finding provides the first clinical proof of concept that an immunotherapy directed against premalignant tumors can prevent cancer,” said Shawn Demehri of the MGH Center for Cancer Immunology and the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, senior author of the report. “We hope our findings will establish that the use of premalignant lesions as personalized therapeutic targets can train the immune system against the progression to cancer.” A common lesion that...