Science and Medicine

It’s not something at the moment we can cure. It’s something that we need to monitor continually so that when these cancers crop up we can minimize the damage

New analysis suggests that for some people with high risk factors, basal cell carcinoma is a chronic disease.

High sun exposure before the age of 30 was a major predictor, as was a history of eczema.

“Basal cell carcinoma is a chronic disease once people have had multiple instances of it, because they are always at risk of getting more,” says Martin Weinstock, professor of dermatology in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who practices at the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“It’s not something at the moment we can cure. It’s something that we need to monitor continually so that when these cancers crop up we can minimize the damage.”

Dermatologists hold out hope for a medication that will help prevent recurrences of BCC. To test one such medicine, Weinstock chaired the six-site, six-year VA Topical Tretinoin Chemoprevential Trial, which last year found that the skin medication failed to prevent further instances of BCC in high-risk patients.

Read more: New Risk Factors for Chronic Skin Cancer

Five to 10 percent of patients with asthma have disease that can be classified as severe, meaning it is difficult to treat and often causes life-threatening breathing problems.

Five to 10 percent of patients with asthma have disease that can be classified as severe, meaning it is difficult to treat and often causes life-threatening breathing problems. Typically these patients are treated with the aim of reducing lung inflammation, but treatment often leads to devastating consequences due to steroid side effects.

As reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers dubbed the condition “asthmatic granulomatosis” after the characteristic small areas of focal inflammation that can be found in the lungs of those who have it.

“We’re now learning that all severe asthma is not the same, but is in fact the result of different problems,” said Sally E. Wenzel, professor, division of pulmonary, allergy, and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “If we better understand the underlying mechanisms that are causing the symptoms, we can offer better treatments.”

For the study, the team examined a group of patients with severe asthma who were being treated at the Difficult Asthma Clinic at the Comprehensive Lung Center of UPMC during a four-year period. Each of the patients met with a certified asthma educator; were taking high doses of inhaled steroids, with or without ingested steroids; and had been monitored for three to 24 months to optimize therapy.

Read more: Immune Suppressants Relieve Severe Asthma