A majority of children are not regularly using sunscreen, ABC News reports. These results were found by a study conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

360 kids who were around 10 years old between 2004 and 2007 [were] surveyed…about whether they ever had sunburns, how much time they spent in the sun and how often they wore sunscreen. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that more than half the children reported having at least one sunburn the previous summer, and that number was about the same when the children were questioned three years later.

This is clearly a problem, because as we know, sunburns place you at risk for melanoma and other skin cancers. The other issue lies in the fact that good behaviors are generally reinforced in childhood, and if children are not using sunscreen now, they will likely not use it as adults either. By teaching young children the importance of sunscreen and having them use the product, it will naturally become part of their routines.  What the study also showed is that while 50% of the children said they used sunscreen at the beginning of the study, three years later only 25% of them still used it.

Stephen Duza, who led the study, pointed out that, “when you ask kids or teens about tanning, they say people look better with a tan, and tanning has a very positive association in kids of this age, so trying to get them to limit this behavior is a difficult message to get across”. Kids and teens need to see the danger in tanning, and not simply associate it with attractiveness.

Here at MoleSafe, we want to spread the importance of sun safe practices. Targeting children is most definitely one of the important steps in spreading melanoma awareness. This study is important in that it shows how much work we have yet to do. Hopefully soon we will be able to get all children to regularly wear sunscreen and understand its importance.

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Zelboraf has been hailed as a possible miracle drug for melanoma patients. Unfortunately, there may be a serious side effect which could prevent patients from taking it, USA Today is reporting.

“…roughly one-quarter of patients who take the medication develop a troublesome side effect: secondary skin cancers called squamous cell carcinomas,” the article states. Researchers at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California: Los Angeles are looking into this new finding.  Dr. Antoni Ribas said:

What we found is that vemurafenib blocks the mutation that makes the melanoma grow, but when patients have skin cells with another mutation that’s probably induced from sun exposure, there the drug has the exact opposite effect and causes these squamous cell cancers to grow.

The findings led to what may be an even more effective way to treat melanoma, however. The researchers think that by combining vemurafenib, which is a BRAF inhibitor, with an MEK inhibitor they may be able to block the mutation, thus preventing the side effect. “It needs to be demonstrated in clinical trials, but the theory is that if we give these two medications together up front, we will be punching the melanoma where it really hurts twice, and also preventing the growth of secondary skin cancers,” said Ribas.

For the study, the researchers analyzed squamous cell lesions in patients taking vemurafenib. They were looking for genetic mutations. Out of 21 tumor samples, 13 had an RAS mutation, which places someone at risk to develop squamous cell cancer. In another set of samples 8 out of 14 had RAS mutations.

The scientists then tested mice, and were able to successfully block the growth of squamous cell cancer using BRAF and MEK inhibitors together. This experiment would obviously need to be transferred to humans so that researchers would know for sure if humans were affected.

Dr. Ribas also points out that these findings could help with other cancers as well. He said that, “what this data also warns us is that we have to be very careful about using BRAF inhibitors in a setting where we don’t know what other mutations may be driving (the cancer)”. We at MoleSafe think that they should keep up the good work!

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