Category Archives: Cancer News

News about cancer, skin cancer or otherwise

Make sure the sunscreen actually works

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There’s a story going around that Honest sunscreen, from Jessica Alba’s company, has not been living up to what it’s supposed to be doing. Parents are complaining that their children are still getting sunburned even though they supposedly reapplied every hour. Now, I don’t use that brand of sunscreen, but if you noticed your kid was getting red after being… Read more »

Are You Really Protecting Yourself from the Sun?

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I just read an article on sneaky ways you get more sun exposure than you may think. Some of them are pretty obvious when you think about it: driving, sitting by a window at work or on a plane. But things like your scalp? I mean, I wear a hat all the time because I have the thinnest hair imaginable;… Read more »

Skin Cancer Doesn’t Always Equal Moles

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Amelanotic nodular melanoma obviously is one of the prime examples of skin cancer not arising from an existing mole. At least, in my experience, that is true. Now a study reported in June 2015 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting has added its voice. According to the analysis of researchers, they discovered that non-mole melanomas “tend to be… Read more »

So Now My Sunscreen Doesn’t Protect Me Like It Should?

I’m sure those of us dealing with some form of skin cancer saw the recent article (on Time.com no less) that up to 80% of the ingredients in sunscreen don’t really work or have ingredients that are “worrisome”. For someone who is counting on sunscreen to protect me and keep me healthy, this news is particularly “worrisome”. First the stats,… Read more »

The Selfie of the Frequent Tanning Bed User

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By now, you’ve probably seen the news story of a young woman named Tawny who used to use a tanning bed frequently in her teens. The graphic image contained in the story shows a beautiful young lady with red blisters and scabs all over her face after a round of treatment for her basal cell and squamous cell cancer lesions…. Read more »

What dermatologists wish we knew about skin cancer

There was a post on msn.com entitled 6 Things Dermatologists Wish We Knew About Skin Cancer. The article is a good read, with stats that give valid reasons why we need to make sure that we see a dermatologist for those annual skin checks. The obvious risk factors are mentioned – you used tanning beds, or you have fair skin,… Read more »

Using herpes to cure melanoma?

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A friend of mine sent me a recent article from Fox News. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Fox News is not exactly a bastion of medical or scientific reporting in my book. But the article talks about how researchers at a cancer institute in Utah is engineering the herpes virus and injecting them directly into melanoma tumors…. Read more »

Melanoma rates jumping – in Iowa

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There was a report on the Iowa Public Radio recently that shows that the rates of melanoma are dramatically increasing. According to the Director of the University of Iowa’s Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. George Weiner, the increase can be considered an epidemic. Now, Iowa is not exactly Florida, right? So what is causing this tremendous increase? Dr. Weiner notes that… Read more »

BRAF Inhibitor Resistance and other things I’m learning

Because of my diagnosis of melanoma late last year, I find myself reading information about the disease. Sometimes, I stumble across information I had no idea even existed. Today, I came across an article that highlighted the efforts of researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Since I live in Texas, I’m always interested in what the… Read more »

Runners and outdoor exercisers need to remember sunscreen too!

Browsing around looking at recent news stories posted about skin cancer, I found an article from the Sydney Morning Herald that reminded runners that they need to be vigilant about sunscreen usage. My husband is an occasional runner and I know that he dislikes wearing sunscreen on his face when he runs because he claims that it drips into his… Read more »