Squamous cell skin cancer is a type that is usually curable, and about 250,000 cases are diagnosed annually.

While squamous cell skin cancer usually isn’t fatal, it’s no laughing matter either. Squamous cell skin cancer can be disfiguring or even endanger health, if left untreated.Squamous cell skin cancer affects three times as many men as it does women. But why? Researchers have long thought that the reasons were linked to lifestyle – since men tend to be less zealous than women about protecting themselves from the sun. But an interesting new study suggests that the reason may lie in characteristics of male skin.

While the study was done in animals, it is the first of its kind to suggest that male skin has less innate protection against ultraviolet light than female skin – and that’s what makes it exciting.The study showed that after being exposed to ultraviolet light, the skin of male rats had lower antioxidant levels and diminished DNA repair capacity when compared to females.Although the females were more likely to suffer inflamed skin – a sunburn – after exposure to UV light, the males sustained more genetic damage from the same amount of UV light.

“Our data tells us that female skin has more antioxidants, compounds that scavenge DNA damaging chemicals,and potentially more mechanisms to repair DNA damage than male skin,” said Kathleen Tober, PhD, a research scientist in Ohio State’s Department of Pathology. “These gender differences suggest that female skin has a higher capacity for repairing sunlight induced DNA damage than does male skin.Without complete repair of this genetic damage, male skin is more prone to skin cancer than is female skin.”

Tober’s study was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention meeting in Philadelphia in early December.While the study points out one reason why male skin is more prone to skin cancer than female skin, it also underlines the link between the sun and the damage it can cause.

Overexposure to the sun’s rays can cause irrepairable damage to the DNA of skin cells –damage that may eventually lead to skin cancer. And while male skin may be more prone to this damage than female skin, all of us need to take heed to prevention messages about skin cancer. So, to my mind, this study is one more reason to cover up and slap on the sunscreen when out in the sun.

Each day I smooth make-up on my face with a sunscreen in it. I don’t go out of the house without it. I remember how wonderful it was to find this makeup 20 years ago. Back then, there were no foundations with sunscreens in them. You had to apply sunscreen (often gooey and irritating to the eyes), then apply your base makeup over it.

Now things are different. It’s easy to find makeup that has sunscreen with SPF 15 –there’s even a line of makeup with powders that come complete with sunscreen of SPF 15.

But in other ways, things haven’t changed. Tanning salons are still quite popular — and people don’t realize how damaging these can be to the skin, and that they are no safer than sun exposure.

In fact, it’s easy to prevent skin cancer — just don’t overexpose yourself to the sun or to tanning salons. Wear a hat and cover up when you’ll be spending extended hours in the sun.

Years ago, when I asked famed scientist Margaret Kripke what the cure would eventually be for skin cancer her answer was simple. “It’s prevention,” she said. “To stop skin cancer in the rats in my lab I just have to do one thing–turn off the UV lights,” she said.

“I was filled with so much fear and tightness in my body beforehand,” Biegel, 43, says. “But afterward I felt relaxed, as if Cheryl’s hands were a little magical.”

Chapman, a former oncology nurse who specializes in training massage therapists to work with cancer patients, says massage can be beneficial for women with breast and reproductive cancers. As well as relaxing muscles, light massage can loosen and soften scars, improve range of motion, increase circulation and decrease pain.

“The use of touch is just very therapeutic for cancer patients,” says Chapman of Shorthills, N.J.
Though research on massage is slim, it’s starting to show the benefits of touch therapy. A recent study of 34 women with breast cancer by Maria Hernandez Reif, M.D., PhD of the University of Miami, revealed that those who went through massages three times a week for five weeks experienced a significant drop in anxiety, anger and depression when compared to a control group. Body chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine that increase relaxation went up, as did the number of natural killer (NK) cells in the women’s blood. NK cells help boost the action of the immune system.

Previous research at the University of Miami and other universities has revealed that massage can also decrease chronic pain, insomnia, and stress. “Massage reduces cortisol, a stress hormone that if chronically elevated destroys healthy immune cells,” Hernandez-Reif says. A type of massage called Shiatsu, also known as acupressure, can help alleviate nausea as well, according to Chapman.

Massage therapists who work with cancer patients typically work with a light touch and may employ healing herbal oils and creams as well. Samantha Stormer, a massage therapist and aromatherapist, owner of Sacred Beginnings in Corte Madera, CA, uses oils such as frankincense and yarrow to increase relaxation and decrease inflammation in cancer patients. “Massage and aromatherapy can help a person heal—if the therapist knows what he or she is doing,” she says.

There are some important cautions for women with cancer who want to use massage therapy. Deep tissue work or Swedish-type massage can be dangerous, causing bruising. The therapist should avoid radiation burns and areas with lymphedema, unless he or she is trained in manual lymph drainage, a type of specialized light massage that helps drain the lymph channels. Regular aromatherapy or straight massage can cause spasms in the lymph vessels, increasing the lymphedema swelling. The therapist should also have specialized training in working with cancer patients.

Massage cannot spread cancer, according to trained massage therapists and physicians. This belief is simply an old myth.

This article originally appeared in Mamm Magazine.

We may be anxious enough about our risk for cancer to lose sleep over it, pop antioxidant supplements or fill our homes with the latest articles and books on cancer. My kitchen closet is filled with bottles of vitamins and supplements that I never remember to take—despite my good intentions.

My mother’s death from breast cancer in 1994 affected me like no other event in my life. Like other people whose relatives have died from cancer, I was left with a psychic scar. I felt sorrow at my mother’s death, guilt about surviving her, and fear about my future. But the experience also prompted me to turn in new directions. In my work as a freelance reporter, I began to write increasingly about cancer research and treatment, something that now inspired my passion.

In psychotherapy I talked about the anger I felt at my mother’s death, and struggled with my own anxieties. What would losing a breast mean for my own sexuality, my relationship with my husband, and my life span? My mother had lived an abbreviated life, dying when she turned 71. Did that mean I wouldn’t live beyond 71 either?

Many women have lost their mothers to breast cancer at far younger ages. For me, the loss was tragic because my mother and I had just started to become friends toward the end of her life. We had a troubled relationship through my teens and twenties, and our fights were often bitter. After she first got cancer, however, she seemed to mellow and become more approachable. It was easier for me to talk to her about the ups and downs of my career and my new marriage, and plans for the future. She often sent me corny Hallmark cards to tell me how she loved me. She was reaching out.

I think about my mother’s death and my risk for cancer as I look in the mirror and trace the quarter-sized scar on my back, left from my surgery for basal cell cancer. Though it’s rare to die from this disease, just having had it makes me more at risk for melanoma, the deadly skin cancer that kills so quickly. Since melanoma runs in my family, I question whether one day I might fall prey to this disease. It doesn’t help that I had several killer sunburns as a child and teen-ager, another risk factor.

But the truth is that people like me with a family history of cancer often overestimate their risk of developing the disease and their risk of dying from it because of their fears, says Michael Stefanek, PhD, of the American Cancer Society. “For a small number of people it’s even a question of “when will I get cancer and die from it” rather than “if I get cancer…. It’s very understandable how people can overestimate their risk, and this can lead to a type of fatalism,” he says.

My fear of cancer seems to come up for me at certain times of the year—when I get my yearly mammogram, when I go to the dermatologist once a year to have my skin checked for suspicious moles, on my mother’s birthday, and the anniversary of her death. “Do you examine your breasts every month?” the nurse practitioner asked me at my yearly gynecological exam several years ago. I laughed a little in embarrassment, and confessed that I didn’t. “That must be hard—to think about doing that,” she said with sympathy.

But I do get yearly mammograms, exercise, and try to eat those five servings of fruits and vegetables every day, I tell myself. I take comfort from the fact that mammograms can now find cancers as small as a pencil head, and most women who get cancer—more than 80%–survive for years.

From my work in interviewing cancer researchers, I know that people at high risk for cancer have widely varying psychological responses to that risk. Some avoid getting mammograms, colonoscopies or genetic tests, while others are hyper-vigilant. Some women are so worried about getting breast cancer, for instance, that they examine their breasts several times a month, a precaution that’s usually unnecessary, Stefanek says.

But the truth is that I don’t know if I can avoid cancer or conquer it, even though I make my living as a medical reporter, and am informed about the disease. There are no guarantees. Like many people at higher than average risk for cancer, I have to confront my fear. Certainly it’s not an ever-present fear, and I go about my life without terrible anxiety or constant thoughts about cancer. But sometimes the fears do rise up to trouble me.

One positive result of such questions, and my increasing involvement in research about cancer risk, was a growing willingness to face the issue of my cancer risk head on. Now I examine my breasts every month, and have a plastic card from my drugstore hanging on the shower faucet that reminds me to do it, and shows me how. I’ve begun eating more fruits and vegetables, adding a fruit snack in the afternoon instead of pie or cake. And I joined the Y, where I exercise on the stationary bikes, treadmill, and take an occasional water aerobics class.

In the mirror of the exercise room at the Y, I see my legs churning the pedals of the exercise bike. I have become plumper over the years, and I see that I am acquiring my mother’s body—not a fate I wanted for myself. For if I share my mother’s body type, might I not share her cancer?

As I learned, there were many unanswered questions. But I intended to look, and keep looking, for answers. Over the last few years, I’ve read the newest research, learned to evaluate my risk more knowingly, and even investigated genetic counseling.

I’ve learned many things in my work in writing about cancer. Above all, I know that if you worry about your cancer risk, you are not alone. And information about how to reduce your cancer risk –as well as taking action to reduce that risk — are your best weapons for defeating cancer.

If you dig deeper into the report, however, you’ll find more encouraging news: Most of the top 15 cancers in both men and women experienced declines in death rates. This was true especially for lung cancer – in both men and women. The decline in lung cancer incidence and deaths probably are due to a drop in smoking rates. All I can say is “hooray!”

The statistics about lung cancer have personal meaning for me because my Dad died of lung cancer several years ago. The sad truth is that he was a smoker for many years (several packs a day) but quit several years before being diagnosed with lung cancer. After having part of his lung taken out surgically, he was healthy for five years. But then BAM! He was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to his spine, and eventually died of this cancer.

The sad truth is that if he had quit smoking earlier on he might have not had to battle lung cancer. Ten years after a smoker quits, his or her risk for cancer is cut in half.

During my Dad’s battle with cancer, the MD who treated him told us that smoking creates a fertile ground in the lungs for the growth of cancer. So the cancer that had spread to my Dad’s spine was a second cancer that had taken hold in his lungs.

The answer to all this? Don’t smoke – don’t start, and if you do smoke, stop. Smoking is absoutely toxic to the lungs. And not smoking is the ONLY way to avoid lung cancer. It makes me pretty angry to see the number of young people, especially young women, who smoke today – to lose weight, to ease stress, or to look cool. They don’t realize that they’re gambling with their health. They don’t realize that the only way to avoid the tragedy of dying from lung cancer is to stop smoking.

As you can tell, I’m a vehement anti-smoker. It surprises me, but a lot of people don’t know how dangerous smoking is. For instance, a recent study found that a significant number of people (40%) believe that living in a polluted city is a greater risk factor for cancer than smoking.

Smoking, is in fact, a much bigger risk factor for lung cancer than environmental pollution and it’s entirely preventable! Smoking contributes not only to lung cancer but to many different types of cancer, including cancers of the esophagus, breast, and pancreas among others.

So I’m glad that the new report had good news about lung cancer — it’s news we’ve been hoping and waiting for –good news after a lot of bad news about cancer, as far as I’m concerned.

It all reminded me of how far we have come in breast cancer awareness. Just 20 years ago, when my mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer, such public awareness and publicity about breast cancer was unusual. We’ve come a long way, baby.

But there’s still more battles to fight. Just read Kathleen Kingsbury’s story in Time this week –a story about the spread of breast cancer throughout the world — and you’ll understand why.

Although breast cancer is spreading throughout the underdeveloped world, awareness as well as access to detection and treatment hasn’t kept pace. Myths about breast cancer also still abound in the Third World, where women with breast cancer may be shunned or discriminated against by their neighbors.

Discrimination against women with breast cancer stems from one thing–FEAR–fear that breast cancer is contagious, and that once diagnosed, one will die from breast cancer. Says Liu Lichun in the Time article: “I’d never heard of anyone in China with cancer who didn’t die.”

This is a sad comment — but also sobering is the Time statistic that by 2020, 70% of all breast cancer cases will be diagnosed in developing countries. That’s why it’s vital for people in the U.S. to be aware of the breast cancer burden not only in the U.S., but in other countries as well.

All well and good, you may say, but what can I personally do about the breast cancer situation in Kenya or China? Well there are things one can do to help. The first is to contribute to breast cancer advocacy groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer organization, which has a worldwide reach and recently sponsored an international conference of doctors, advocates and survivors to share information, stories and support. Other groups that give money to underserved populations in foreign countries include the Avon Foundation, which sponsors marathons for breast cancer around the U.S.

It really isn’t difficult to contribute to a breast cancer charity, or to make a more time-intensive effort –to actually walk in a marathon that will raise money for the breast cancer fight around the world. I walked in the Avon Breast Cancer Marathon in NY last year, and it was an incredible experience. I walked the length of Manhattan during the marathon, along with breast cancer survivors and those who’ve lost relatives and friends to breast cancer as I have. Wearing a placard that read “for my mother, Anne and for my Aunt Mary” –both of whom were diagnosed with breast cancer –I felt that I had really accomplished something by trudging along New York’s city streets during the marathon, despite a shoulder injury and sore feet afterward.

I’ll never forget the sight of hundreds of balloons lifting over the South Sea Seaport in lower Manhattan, as those who had walked in the marathon cheered and celebrated the millions of dollars raised that weekend.

Of course, keeping breast cancer before the eye of the public doesn’t have to mean walking in a marathon. It can be incredibly simple. Giving a donation at your local Safeway or Starbucks is one way. Or just getting up in the morning, and pinning a pink ribbon to your lapel is a sign to the world –breast cancer SHOULD be taken seriously.

To read Kathleen Kingsbury’s story in Time, visit: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1666089_1666563_1668477,00.html

Susan G. Komen for the Cure Web site: http://www.komen.org/

• Avon Walk for Breast Cancer: http://walk.avonfoundation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=walk_homepage