Positief perberichtje.
Head of Dermatology at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, advocating for its 'cosmetic' use - sounds good to me.
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New drug may lead to a safer golden glow - Sunsafe: A special advertising report
8 February 2008
The Australian
SYRINGES, guns and bottles may sound like props in a seedy Hollywood flick. But they're also some of the ways to get a golden glow away from the sun's harmful rays.
Slapping on the bottled colour and standing before a gun in the spray booth have become part of many people's beauty regimen.
Now, a new method which literally turns the idea of sunless tanning inside-out, is in the making.
Melbourne-based biotech company, Clinuvel, is in the process of running clinical trials for CUV1647, a product which stimulates the production of melanin within the skin.
If it does gain regulatory approval, it won't, however, herald the end of tell-tale streaks and terracotta palms. While it does darken the skin, CUV1647 is being developed for therapeutic, rather than cosmetic purposes. It will most likely come in the form of a small implant, to be injected beneath the skin by medical practitioners.
As melanin provides inbuilt protection against UV radiation, the more melanin a person has, the lower their chances of contracting skin cancer.
CUV1647 is currently being tested for its ability to treat people with various UV-related skin disorders and cancer-related conditions.
These include organ transplant patients who are fair-skinned and on prescribed immune-suppressant medication. These people are 65 to 100 times more likely to develop skin cancer than the general population. Sun poisoning condition, Polymorphous Light Eruption, sun allergy, Solar Urticaria and Erythropoietic Protoporphyria, which causes sufferers to have an absolute intolerance to the sun, are other conditions it aims to treat.
Professor Alan Cooper, head of dermatology at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital, was involved in setting up the initial drug trials.
He says it's a product which shows great promise: ``In terms of preventing skin cancer, we're looking at something like halving or reducing the rate by two thirds, which is fantastic.''
In terms of its use for aesthetic purposes, Prof. Cooper says the injected form wasn't favourable: ``When something is being injected into the body, we're always a bit uncomfortable with that being done for purely cosmetic reasons.''
However, if it's deemed to be 100 per cent safe once trials are complete, he says he would be open to the idea: ``I don't see any problem with using it for cosmetic purposes if it means that people are not going to lie in the sun or on sun beds. It would clearly be a far safer way.
``We know by doing this you are not only increasing your protection against skin cancer, you no-longer have to go out in the sun to get a tan. This can have a profound impact on skin cancer rates in this country.''