News by Subject Medicine & Health

Advances in treatment have led to the largest yearly declines in deaths due to melanoma ever recorded for this skin cancer, results of a new study suggest.

Acne treatment including the highly effective acne medication isotretinoin should be made more readily available despite reports of its association with depression and teen suicide, a study recommends.

Scientists have identified the mechanism that allows skin cells to sense changes in their environment, and very quickly respond to reinforce the skin's outermost layer. The findings provide insight into how errors in this process might lead to skin conditions like psoriasis.

Psychological stress has been proposed as a risk factor for melanoma, but clinical evidence is limited. A recent British Journal of Dermatology study funded by the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology looked for a potential link between the death of a partner, which is one of the most stressful life events, and melanoma.

Netherton syndrome is exacerbated by the presence of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis living on human skin report University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers.

Our skin protects us from physical injury, radiation and microbes, and at the same time produces hair and facilitates perspiration. Details of how skin cells manage such disparate tasks have so far remained elusive. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have systematically mapped skin cells and their genetic programs, creating a detailed molecular atlas of the skin in its complexity. The study is published today in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell.

Studying eczema, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that boosting the number of natural killer cells in the blood is a possible treatment strategy for the skin condition and also may help with related health problems, such as asthma.