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By Kirsten Houmann, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Those who have had non-melanoma skin cancer may be at increased risk for other cancers, new research shows.
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Previous studies have connected non-melanoma skin cancer with an increased risk of melanoma, but a new study helps establish a link between non-melanoma with susceptibility to other, non-skin cancers.
Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) analyzed data from an ongoing cancer study called CLUE II. The team compared the risk of malignancies in participants who had been diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer with individuals with no history of the disease during a 16-year follow-up period.
The results were surprising, Anthony Alberg, Ph.D., Associate Director of Cancer Prevention and Control at MUSC, told Ivanhoe.
Those who had a personal history of non-melanoma skin cancer had double the risk of developing a subsequent malignancy, he said.
The risk remained significant even after researchers removed melanoma from the list of cancers that followed -- meaning the risk was not limited to skin cancer.
The youngest study participants, aged 25 to 44 years, were most at risk of developing other cancers after battling skin cancer.
The fact that theres an early age of onset observed in our study is consistent with the fact that there may be an underlying genetic predisposition to skin cancer, and other cancers as well, Dr. Alberg said.
Dr. Alberg said the study opens up many doors for future cancer research.
What makes this scientifically really exciting is if this associations true, it could provide a clue for some underlying mechanism that relates to many different cancers -- and that would be potentially a clue as to causes of human cancer, he said.
More than 1 million cases of non-melanoma cancer are diagnosed every year, according to the American Cancer Society.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Anthony Alberg, Ph.D.;Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2008, published online August 26, 2008
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