Link Between Skin Cancer and Common Virus

Human papilloma virus, or HPV, is a versatile bug.

Not only does it cause cervical cancer, but a variety of warts—including plantar and genital warts.

Now researchers at Dartmouth think it might have something to do with skin cancer.

Doctor Margaret Karagas found HPV was more common in people who had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.

Karagas: I think it’s interesting because we normally think of skin cancer being caused by sunlight and also having fair pigmentation that increases your sensitivity to sunlight.

Karagas adds that her study doesn’t prove that HPV causes cancer—it merely shows that the two are often seen together.

She thinks the virus might be working in cahoots with sunlight.

Karagas: Having sun exposure increases your risk and maybe human papilloma virus infection may increase your risk, but having those two things together may be more than additive.

Karagas’s findings are especially compelling because of work being done on cervical cancer.

Just down the hall from her office, scientists have developed a vaccine against the HPV strains that cause cervical cancer.

Doctor Doug Lowy studies human papilloma virus at the National Cancer Institute.

Lowy: Certainly it is very plausible, given that some HPVs are known to be oncogenic, that is to cause cancer, it is plausible that the same thing could be happening with skin cancer.

If that’s the case, a vaccine to prevent additional HPV strains could also prevent some skin cancers and have an impact on millions of people.

Two hundred thousand people in the US develop squamous cell carcinoma each year.

Doctor Peter Sands, a dermatologist in Concord, says that skin cancers are more common than all other cancers combined.

Fortunately, they are also some of the least dangerous.

Sands: That’s the nice thing about skin cancer is that it can be caught early, it can be successfully treated when it’s caught early. And therefore, despite the large number of people who have it we can often do quite well by treating it.

And though treatment is usually a simple outpatient procedure, it can cost from five hundred to one thousand dollars.

According to the American Cancer Society, Medicare spends nearly a half billion dollars on non melanoma cancer treatment each year.

But cost is not the main motivator for Doctor Karagas.

Karagas: The other concern about these cancers is that they appear to be rapidly increasing in many parts of the world, including our findings here in New Hampshire. Especially these squamous cell carcinomas that may be related to these cutaneous HPV types.

Karagas’s next step is to determine whether HPV is indeed a cause of cancer, and how significant it is.

She says the technology to do so is available, and she could have the answer in the next few years.

Her findings are published in this month’s issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

SOQ