[Guest]

My husb's maternal ancestors have a pronounced history of facial skin cancers. His aunt lost an ear to it. His mor has had many cancerous spots removed from portions of her face hasrecently had lymph gls in her neck removed. My husb, age 48, has had numerous precancerous as frozen removed on his face including one cancerous spot last year. He sees dermatologist routinely every f to six months. At his visit last month, dermatologist observed a marked increase in number of precancerous spots. After freezing m, he advised my husb to undergo a regime of chemorapy twice daily 30 days as a proactive measure against potential melanomas. Could please direct me to readings on ( or) treatments? Thak .

[Guest]

What form of chemotherapy? Is he talking about applying a cream (5-fluorouracil) to the face? If so, that is a good idea. The cream, sold under several brand names, will "attack" all the precancerous cells, even the ones that aren't yet visible to our eye. THose areas will turn bright red and will scab. It looks awful for a couple of weeks, but the skin is smooth and precancer free for the most part, for a few years. Two points, however: first, it does not prevent potential melanomas, as it is not those kind of precancerous lesions--it would prevent squamous cell carcinomas forming out of the precancers. Second, I think one month is an awfully long time for this treatment on the face. I find most people get the desired response after a week or two. One month of treatment will become painful. The stopping point is when the rough spots/precancerous spots become red and crusted. Do not continue treatment beyond that point as you have attained your result. Finally, this cream does not treat actual skin cancers.