New Radioactive Patch To Treat Skin Cancer

By Margarita Nahapetyan

Researchers at the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting have reported that a new radioactive skin patch was found to be effective and safe to treat a form of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma, which often shows up on the face and neck.

According to a new small study, the skin patch, which delivers the radioactive phosphorus-32, is non-toxic and does not leave any scars, as some current therapies do. Therefore, the scientists say that the patch could become an excellent alternative to surgery or radiotherapy in cases where providing patients with these treatments is difficult.

Basal cell carcinoma is one of the most common forms of skin cancer and is triggered most often by long-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from sunlight. While the condition is fatal in a very rare cases, it can be a painful and disfiguring disease, causing extensive damage to surrounding tissue and bone if the cancer sites are not removed.

"It is exciting to think that this patch can deliver treatment on an outpatient basis with little risk of the scarring or other complications that surgery or radiotherapy present," said a lead author of the study, Priyanka Gupta, a nuclear medicine technologist in the Department of Nuclear Medicine at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The expert also added that the new study opens a new dimension not only for treating skin conditions, but also for nuclear medicine therapy in general.

The study involved 8 adult patients who chose to try the patch instead of undergoing surgery or radiotherapy. All adults had basal cell carcinoma on the face, and none of them carried cancer cells in underlying facial structures. Sealed patches, which contained radioactive phosphorus-32 that deliver beta radiation to the cancer site, were custom-made according to the shape and size of each participant's skin cancer lesions. The experts have locally applied the patches on the cancer sites for the period of 3 hours. After that, the patches were reapplied to each person's cancer sites 2 more times on the following days, and each subsequent time patients had them for three hours. The treatment took about 7 days to administer.

The results showed that 3 months after the treatment, biopsies of all of the patients' skin cancer sites revealed no basal cell carcinoma. Overall, the treatment had few side effects and resulted in minimal scarring. What is more, after conducting routine blood and biochemical exams, researchers did not find any toxicity from the radioactive patches. Phosporous-32 carries no risk of external radiation, and its limited range does not allow beta radiation to reach to the bone or underlying blood vessels, therefore sparing the bone and bone marrow.

Every year, approximately one million people in the United States are newly diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma. The most common forms of treatment are surgery and radiotherapy. Surgery requires hospitalization, and radiotherapy means that multiple visits must be paid to a radiotherapist. None of these treatments result in a complete cure. For individuals with the condition on the face, these treatments can leave permanent scarring and can be even hard to deliver, especially for cancers that are close to the eye area, nose or mouth. In 80 per cent of all cases, basal cell carcinomas appear on the head or neck.

The findings of the study were presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 56th Annual Meeting.