Psoriasis vitamin cream shown to improve treatment of pre-cancerous patches
- Psoriasis cream can improve treatment of pre-cancerous skin patches
- Drug is a synthetic version of active form of vitamin D, calcitriol
- Researchers re-purposed it to treat patients with actinic keratosis
- Adding it to chemotherapy led to reduction of pre-cancerous sites of damage on 132 patients
Daily Mail Reporter
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A vitamin D cream for psoriasis can improve the treatment of pre-cancerous skin patches on the face by more than 60%, research has shown.
Combining calcipotriol with a widely used chemotherapy ointment triggered a strong immune response against the abnormal cells, scientists found.
The drug is a synthetic version of the ‘active’ form of vitamin D, calcitriol. It is normally used to treat psoriasis, an auto-immune condition marked by red, scaly skin patches.
A vitamin D cream has been used in conjunction with the topical chemotherapy 5-fluorouracil in a study, and resulted in a reduction of pre-cancerous sites of skin damage
In the study, researchers re-purposed it to treat patients with actinic keratosis, which produces dry, scaly, pink, red or brown patches where the skin has been exposed to the sun for too long.
Adding calcipotriol to the topical chemotherapy 5-fluorouracil led to a big reduction in the number of pre-cancerous sites of skin damage on the faces of 132 patients.
They fell by an average of almost 88%, compared with 26% using standard chemotherapy alone.
Study co-author Dr Lynn Cornelius, director of dermatology at Washington University in the US, said: ‘We looked at pre-cancerous lesions on patients with sun-damaged skin.
‘Most commonly found on the face, scalp and arms, these lesions appear abnormal by visual examination and under the microscope but are not full-blown skin cancers.
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The cream is usually used to treat psoriasis, an auto-immune condition marked by red, scaly skin patches
‘But because these lesions have the potential to develop into a true skin cancer, they are commonly treated. Our study shows this combination therapy is more effective and better tolerated than current treatment practices.’
Previous research had shown that a protein called TSLP in the skin activated immune system T-cells which attacked tumour cells. Calcipotriol is known to help the skin generate TSLP.
‘The idea behind this study was to induce a heightened immune response in the skin using calcipotriol combined with the 5-fluorouracil that works to destroy the pre-cancerous cells,’ said Dr Cornelius.
On average, the study participants had 15 skin lesions on the face, 22 on the scalp, 14 on the right arm, and 12 on the left arm.
Compared with standard therapy, the experimental treatment reduced scalp lesions by 70%.
The findings appear in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
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