Psoriasis patients treated for many years with PUVA therapy may be more susceptible to develop cutaneous carcinomas, such as basal cell carcinoma, especially when combined with short regimens of cyclosporine A. Physicians who must turn to this combination regimen in therapy-resistant psoriasis patients should be aware of the possible increased risk for the development of skin cancers in these patients.

Leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a very rare soft tissue tumor; however, if the diagnosis is missed, repercussions can be grave, reflected in a poor prognosis. Clinicians should be aware of the cutaneous variant and, although LMS is rare, it should be considered in the differential diagnosis of obscure and ambiguous presenting tumors.

The future of melanoma diagnosis will involve increasingly sophisticated devices such as multispectral digital dermoscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy and perhaps optical frequency domain imaging, an expert says.

Experts agree that necrobiosis lipoidica (NL) is challenging to treat. According to one expert, doctors should be suspicious of squamous cell carcinoma in nonhealing ulcers within NL lesions.

During the Congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, the European Society for Micrographic Surgery discussed the growing problem of skin cancer. We would like to share our thoughts about the increasing number of skin cancer patients and how to deal with this problem.

According to a recent study, the application of a specially formulated skincare system used before and after the electrodesiccation and curettage of superficial basal cell carcinomas proves to assist in wound healing and ultimately achieve better cosmetic results.

Reduced ING4 staining is associated with melanoma thickness, ulceration and poor overall survival, which suggests that restoring the tumor suppressor ING4 is a possible therapeutic direction.

Knowledge of the mechanisms involved in melanoma development may help to identify targets for chemoprevention or treatment. A variant in the cyclin D1 gene appears to increase susceptibility to malignant melanoma, an expert says.

Off-label use of imiquimod proves extremely effective for nodular and morpheiform BCCs as well as SCCs, arecent study indicates. According to one expert, long-term immune modulation therapy with imiquimod can significantly benefit patients with chronic actinic dysplasias and skin tumors.