Better Understanding of Melanoma and UV Risk by UCSF Cancer Experts Confirms Danger of Sun Exposure

"Researchers can more easily set their sights on targets for new treatments for the deadliest skin cancer, thanks to landmark findings by UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center member Boris Bastian, MD, PhD, and colleagues.The skin pathologist and his colleagues showed that the skin cancer known as melanoma comes in at least four distinct varieties. The different types may require different targeted therapeutic approaches, the researchers found. Bastian and colleagues classified melanomas in a new way. The classification was based on body sites where cancers arose and on degree of sun exposure. The researchers discovered marked differences in the way genes were altered among the types. Different biochemical pathways tend to be disrupted in the different types of tumors identified."