FIGHTING DEADLY SKIN CANCERS

Loyola’s Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center has assembled a team of renowned experts to battle melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Malignant melanoma is the most common cancer in women between ages 25 and 29 and is second only to adult leukemia in the years of life lost. 

Brian Nickoloff, M.D., Ph.D., one the world’s top clinical dermatopathology researchers, is focusing his team of investigators on finding ways to shorten the lifespan of melanoma and other skin cancer cells. Although cancer cells appear to proliferate through abnormally rapid growth, actually they outlive the normal cells that surround them. He believes the key to success in treating skin cancer is to discover how cancer cells keep themselves alive and find ways to destroy them by selectively inducing cell death — without harming normal cells. 

Collaborating with June Robinson, M.D., head of Loyola’s Multidisciplinary Melanoma Clinic, Nickoloff also is working to develop more comprehensive ways to predict when melanoma tumors will metastasize and cause cancer to spread through the body. If patients are treated before metastasis, their survival rates are much higher. 

Melanoma can be diagnosed and treated before metastasis if patients’ atypical moles are closely monitored. Robinson uses an advanced technique, called mole mapping digital epiluminescence microscopy, to survey moles and store images of them over time. This enables physicians to better determine which moles should be biopsied for further study, so patients need fewer biopsies and melanoma can be diagnosed earlier. 

At Loyola’s Multidisciplinary Melanoma Clinic, specialists work together on-site to provide optimum care. Because we combine treatment, research and education, our patients have access to the latest clinical trials and leading-edge treatment programs. 

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