Ah, summer.
To many, it means time on the Jersey shore, out in the motorboat or lying by the pool. But to Dr. Howard Kaufman, MD, it means one thing: Skin cancer. Rates of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, are increasing, and here in New Jersey, melanoma is growing faster than in other states.
"New Jersey has a higher rate of melanoma, something we always tend to attribute to the Jersey Shore," said Dr. Kaufman, associate director of clinical science and chief surgical officer at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. "Melanoma is one of the few cancers that does seem to be on the rise. And we're not 100 percent sure why, but a lot of it relates to sun exposure."
It could be other factors as well, he said, such as the many tanning salons that dot New Jersey.
"One of the worst things you can do is go to a tanning salon," he said. "When we want to encourage melanoma growth in lab mice, we put them under ultraviolet light, the same thing used in a tanning bed. Why would you purposefully do that to yourself?"
Melanoma seen more in these two groups
"We are seeing the highest increase in men over age 65," said Dr. Kaufman. "A lot of times these are people who are retired. They are out playing golf and getting more sun exposure. The other group is women in their 20s, which is even more concerning. The feeling there is that this is directly related to tanning bed exposure in high school."
There are two major risk factors to getting melanoma, he says.
The first is having a genetic predisposition. These are people who have a family history of skin cancer; people who have lots of freckles and moles; and those who are very fair-skinned, such as redheads and blue-eyed individuals.
The second risk factor is exposure to ultraviolet radiation, which comes from the sun and tanning salons.
Groundbreaking melanoma treatment developed at Rutgers Cancer Institute
If you catch melanoma early enough, it's usually cureable. However, once the cancer grows beyond one millimeter deep in the skin, it becomes aggressive, fast growing - and lethal.
"Melanoma first spreads from the skin into the lymph nodes, where it's a very dangerous disease," said Dr. Kaufman. "Once it's in the lymph nodes, the survival rate is about 50 percent. And from there it can spread anywhere in the body - brain, lung, liver, kidneys - and the survival rate at that point is only about 5 percent."
But Dr. Kaufman and his team have developed groundbreaking new methods at Rutgers Cancer Institute to treat melanoma: Using the body's own immune system to fight back against cancer cells.
In fact, a new melanoma drug that was just approved by the FDA in October was developed right here at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey: Imlygic.
"The thinking here is that one of the main jobs of T cells, which are white blood cells, is to circulate throughout the body and find viral infections, which should not be there," he explained. "But we believe another one of their functions can be to look for and destroy cancer cells, which also should not be there."
Once T cells detect a foreign body, they attack it. If fact, some of the most standard symptoms of any illness - fatigue, aches and pains - are really just signs your body's own immune system is fighting off an invader.
"In most people, the immune system is strong and constantly working to keep you healthy. However, we noticed something in people who had recently gotten a kidney transplant: Their immune system was dramatically lowered, and they were being diagnosed with melanoma," said Dr. Kaufman. "So immunotherapy was developed to try and give your T cells an extra boost of antibodies to help them fight cancer growth."
To create Imlygic, Dr. Kaufman and his staff of researchers and Rutgers graduate students isolated part of the herpes virus. The medicine is injected intravenously into a patient's bloodstream, where it helps stimulate white blood cell production, which then seeks out and destroys melanoma cells.
"It's remarkable," he said. "We are even seeing cures today in patients with very advanced melanoma. I have a few patients who have been here now for 10 to 15 years longer than I expected."
Rutgers was one of the first to pursue immunotherapy for melanoma, and the work has helped make the school a leader in the field of immunotherapy. In fact, Rutgers Cancer Center of New Jersey was just recently selected to join 27 other cancer centers, among them Harvard and Yale, to be part of the first-ever Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network.
Another immunotherapy that has shown promise in advanced melanoma is nivolumab, or Opdivo. Rutgers has been a trial site for clinical trials evaluating the use of Opdivo, which have shown promise. In January, the combination of Opdivo and another drug, Yervoy, received an expanded FDA approval in metastatic melanoma.
Stay safe in the sun this summer
In the meantime, here's how to lower your risk of developing skin cancer.
"You can't control your genetics, but you can control how much time you spend in the sun," says Dr. Kaufman. "Go out in the early morning or late afternoon. Don't go out in the middle of the day, when UV rays are at their strongest. The best protection is to wear long-sleeved clothes or a hats. That's really going to block the sun the best. The second best is to use sunscreen."
Avoid intense sun exposure. That means someone who spends every day of summer outdoors in a hat and loose shirt is safer than someone who bakes in a bikini in the sand for four days straight.
"This doesn't mean don't go out in the sun. Yes, Vitamin D is healthy, but you can get your whole day's supply of Vitamin D with just 20 minutes of sun exposure," he said.
Also, change your conception of beauty. Thanks in part to Victoria's Secret and the rise of Brazilian supermodels, tan, bronzed skin has come to be seen as sexy and healthy.
"Look at pictures of New Jersey beaches from the 1920s. Everyone was in long clothes, umbrellas everywhere. Women didn't want to get tan. It wasn't considered attractive," said Dr. Kaufman. "Today, everyone is practically naked at the beach. Melanoma rates were much lower in the 1920s than they are today."
Return to News Home
