Released on = December 15, 2006, 3:04 am

Press Release Author = From the desk of Dr. Magne, author of Cancer Free For Life

Industry = Healthcare

Press Release Summary = Chemical Peel, and Laser Resurfacing Reduce Number of New
Cancers

Press Release Body = Acid skin peel, and laser resurfacing, all remove precancerous
skin growths and slow skin cancer -- but patients prefer the peel.
Precancerous growths, which are small areas of discrete roughness to the skin, come
from too much sun. Particularly when a person has a lot of them, they tend to become
squamous cell carcinomas: skin cancer.

Doctors often burn off these growths, called actinic keratoses, with liquid
nitrogen. But there\'s evidence of other ways of removing them work at least as well,
and they slow the development of skin cancer.
These techniques were compared in 24 men. The patients had an average age of 73; all
but three had previously had skin cancers removed. Five similar patients served as
an untreated comparison group.

Before treatment, the 24 men had dozens of precancerous facial growths. The
researchers treated the men with laser resurfacing, or an acid skin peel. All
treatments worked, reducing the number of precancerous skin growths 89% for the skin
peel, and 92% for the laser. The treatments also seemed to slow the development of
new skin cancers.

Left untreated, the patients would be expected to develop 1.7 new facial skin
cancers a year. That\'s close to what happened in the untreated comparison group. But
the treated patients had only 0.04 to 0.22 new skin cancers per year.
In the acid peel arm, one cancer per 26.1 years would be expected, compared with 1
cancer per 6.79 and 4.77 years in the laser arms. The untreated comparison group had
1.57 new cancers per year: that is, one new cancer every eight months. The patients
who got the acid peel were much more compliant with treatment, and had fewer side
effects than those treated with laser.

Repeated treatments may be needed. In any case, patients with precancerous facial
growths must get careful follow-up care. Because the study had several limitations
-- including its small size, infrequent use of sunscreen, and a control group that
was not randomly picked -- the researchers warn that their findings must be
confirmed in larger studies.

Still, of interest is to note that there are alternative treatments to skin cancer,
and even though reasonably invasive, they show fewer long-term side effects than the
traditional approaches of chemotherapy or burning. Alternative treatments and
natural healing techniques are available in the book Cancer Free For Life, available
for immediate download at http://cancer-free-for-life.com

You will find many more articles on cancer and how to live a disease-free lifestyle
on http://alternative-health-ebooks.com

Web Site = http://cancer-free-for-life.com

Contact Details = Dr Laurence Magne
Publisher, Author
Cancer Free For Life
Email : lmagne@yahoo.com
Website : http://cancer-free-for-life.com