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| |  New Skin Cancer Treatment Gives Alternative To Surgery SCHAUMBURG, IL. -- October 24, 1997 -- A new cancer treatment that combines chemotherapy with application of electric pulses has a 98 percent success rate in removing skin cancers, according to preliminary study results reported in the October issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (JAAD). The treatment, electrochemotherapy, may offer individuals with the most common form of skin cancer -- basal cell carcinoma -- an alternative therapy that is as effective as surgery and leaves fewer scars. "Electrochemotherapy is quick, relatively painless and involves no cutting or stitches," said Lewis Glass, MD, a dermatologist at the University of South Florida and the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. "We expect electrochemotherapy will become an option for patients who cannot have surgery for health reasons, who have inoperable tumors or who want to avoid the disfigurement that is possible with surgical removal of multiple tumors.” In the study, 20 patients with first-time basal cell carcinoma received electrochemotherapy to 54 tumors. Shortly after injection of the chemotherapy drug bleomycin into the tumors, needle electrodes delivered split-second pulses of electricity to the cancerous tissues. Rather than burning off the tumor, the electricity opened skin pores so the drug could more effectively target cancer cells for destruction. In prior studies, chemotherapy alone did not successfully treat skin cancer. However, in the new study, electrochemotherapy removed all traces of 53 of the 54 tumors, a 98 percent success rate. Most of the tumors (94 percent) required only one treatment. None of the patients had a recurrence of their cancer 18 months after treatment. A five-year follow-up study is planned, as is a multi-center study to test electrochemotherapy in a larger number of patients with basal cell carcinoma. Eighty percent of the one million skin cancers diagnosed each year are basal cell carcinomas, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Although this type of cancer rarely spreads to other parts of the body, if untreated, it can grow below the skin and damage the surrounding bones.
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