New study may help explain why rates are three times higher in men
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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Females are often called the fairer sex, but scientists have found that they may have an unfair advantage over males when it comes to battling skin cancer.
Men are much more likely to get skin cancer than women¹ but for generations, doctors didn’t know why.
“The incidence of skin cancer in men is approximately three fold higher than in women,” said Gregory Lesinski, PhD, an assistant professor of medical oncology. “However, the scientific mechanisms behind that difference are not well understood,” he said.
But now, researchers at Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center may have uncovered a clue. While studying skin cancer in mice, scientists discovered that male and female skin respond quite differently when damaged by ultraviolet light.
“There was a profound difference in the level of antioxidants that were present,” said Lesinski, “and one particular antioxidant called catalase was much higher in females than in males.”
“That’s important,” added Nicholas Sullivan, PhD, a research scientist who helped author the study’s findings. “We have these naturally occurring antioxidants in the skin to help protect us from the inflammation that arises due to ultraviolet light. And male mice have much less compared to females.”
The same may hold true for humans, and could help explain why men are at a much higher risk of getting skin cancer than women.
Men like 78-year old Thomas Stockdale, who found a love of the outdoors from a very early age. “I spent hours pushing around a canoe through the Lake Erie marshes and exploring the woods,” said Stockdale. Then, as he grew to be a teenage, a job as a caddy meant spending nearly all day, every day in the sun. “As a caddy, we would never be caught with a cap of any sort on – and we all had crew cuts,” he said.
While Stockdale says he never suffered anything more serious than an occasional sunburn, he realizes he is now paying for all that time in the sun. Over the last 15 years, Stockdale has had dozens of moles and minor tumors removed by doctors. “I usually have at least two appointments a year with a dermatologist and he finds something every time I’m in there,” he said. “Later in life you begin to pay the penalty for those early days.”
But findings like these could someday lead to more effective ways to prevent and treat skin cancer. “We actually found that when we would restore the antioxidant catalase into male skin,” said Lesinski, “the tumors would become less of a burden in this study.”
“So, you could envision in the future possibly treating the skin topically with these antioxidants,” added Sullivan, “to prevent, or even treat some of these patients with skin cancer.”
In this study scientists looked only at non-melanoma skin cancer, the least dangerous type, but, by far, the most common form of cancer. “Our hope is to use this knowledge to hopefully prevent skin cancer in high risk populations,” said Lesinski.
The study was published online in October by the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.¹
¹UV Light B–Mediated Inhibition of Skin Catalase Activity Promotes Gr-1+CD11b+ Myeloid Cell Expansion, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, October 27, 2011. Online: http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/jid2011329a.html
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