Washington, July 31 (Inditop.com) A virus discovered last year in a rare form of skin cancer has also been found among those affected with the second most common form of skin cancer, indicating that it might be more prevalent than earlier thought.
“Originally it was thought that this virus caused only this rare skin cancer, but our findings indicate that it is a lot more prevalent than we initially thought,” said principal investigator Amanda E. Toland, assistant professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Centre (OSU-3C).
“If it proves to be a cancer-causing virus, and if it proves to be common in the general population, it might be something we should begin screening people for,” Toland said.
The study by OSU-3C had examined tissues of 58 people with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), a highly curable form of common skin cancer that is likely to affect more than 200,000 Americans this year.
They identified the virus in more than a third of the patients and in 15 percent of the tumours tested.
The virus was first discovered in patients with Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer that occurs mainly in the elderly and people with a suppressed immune system.
The findings were published in a recent issue of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
