We're not even 11 days into Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and already my awareness about the disease has been raised several times.
Think about this:
Researchers involved in a large skin cancer trial measured 2,3,5-pyrroletricarboxylic acid (PTCA) levels of 98 subjects with melanoma and 98 subjects without melanoma. They found the subjects with a PTCA concentration below 85ng/mg had more than four times the risk of developing melanoma.
Assessing melanin levels to determine a person's skin cancer risk could be used to advise patients about how often they should be screened for the disease, says Dr. Stefano Rosso from the Piedmont Cancer Registry in Italy who shares that concentrations of melanin can be measured by various means -- all of which may eventually lead to the possibility of studying the direct role melanin plays in the causes of skin tumors.
Melanin is a natural substance that gives color to the hair, skin, and iris of the eye. It also protects the skin from the damaging rays of the sun.
