by Karina Guzzi
Daily Lobo
Sunlight has been found to progress melanoma, a type of skin cancer. But according to a UNM researcher's findings, sun might also be beneficial to skin.
Marianne Berwick, director of the Cancer Prevention Center at UNM, is conducting a study to confirm the findings from her previous study.
In that study, researchers tried to understand the biological pathway to the development and progression of melanoma.
Their findings were published in the Feb. 2 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in an article titled "Sun exposure and mortality from melanoma."
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Berwick said the study concluded that sun exposure increases survival.
The study also indicates sunlight is not the only cause of melanoma development, and genetic predisposition plays a bigger role.
"What we think is that people who get melanoma - even though they didn't have sun exposure - have some genetic problems," she said. "It's different kinds of genetic factors that interact with sun exposure, so that they get not only melanoma but an aggressive form of melanoma."
Berwick said the study's co-author, Bruce Armstrong, noticed that in places where people had more exposure to sunlight, there were also high survival rates - especially when compared to places where people were less exposed to sunlight.
She said she is not positive of the exact role genetics play in causing melanoma.
"We don't know if it's a combination of the genetics and sun or if it's just genetics," Berwick said.
One indication that melanoma might be caused by genetics is that animals with a layer of hair protecting their skin from the sun also get the disease.
"Dogs get melanoma," she said. "Horses get melanoma. Chickens get melanoma, because it's not sun-caused sometimes."
A possible genetic reason for developing melanoma, the study said, is a mutation that impairs the body's ability to process the vitamin D it gets from the sun.
"We think that the sun might not be totally bad," Berwick said. "The hypothesis at the moment, in terms of genetic factors, is that maybe the vitamin D synthesis is not quite right, or they don't have enough."
Berwick said there is not a way to find out who could have a genetic predisposition to develop melanomas.
"We don't know what those things are yet, and when we do, we might be able to develop a test," she said. "I will apply for another grant to look at the cells themselves. We will study the vitamin D further."
There are more than 200 cases of melanoma in New Mexico, and if discovered early, the chances of complete healing are high, Berwick said.
"Usually 15 percent of the people who get it die from it," she said. "About 85 percent of the people who get melanoma will have it cured through surgery. The best thing for people to do now is to do self-examination and find the melanomas early. If you check it late, then you have a poor outcome."
Berwick is repeating the study with 3,700 patients. The first study had 528 patients.
"We have data from that study that it does increase survival," she said. "So now we have a bigger study to see if the same thing is true."
Her $2.5 million, multinational study is funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. It will be funded until 2010.
