Doctors at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a new cause of skin cancer, according to a case report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
\n<\/p>\n
The culprit is a type of human papillomavirus (HPV) that\u2019s regularly found on the skin. It\u2019s long been thought to play a role in the development of skin cancer, but wasn\u2019t believed to be a direct cause.
\nSkin cancer is caused by DNA damage in skin cells. The most common source of that damage is ultraviolet radiation from the sun. HPV can help UV-damaged DNA build up in cells and turn cancerous. However, in the new case report, doctors found that the virus itself could cause cancerous lesions to form.<\/p>\n
The discovery was made in a 34-year-old woman with a weakened immune system; experts said it\u2019s highly unlikely that HPV could play the same role in causing skin cancer in a person with a healthy immune system.
\n\u201cThe virus replicated in a somewhat uncontrolled manner and ended up integrating into the skin cells and once they did that, they became cancerous,\u201d said Dr. Andrea Lisco, section chief of the mucosal and cutaneous viral immunopathogenesis unit at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH. Lisco was the woman\u2019s doctor and also the senior author of the case report.<\/p>\n
The woman had 43 spots of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma \u2014 the second-most common type of skin cancer, after melanoma \u2014on her face, hands and legs. She had surgery to remove the cancers and immunotherapy, but the cancer returned. When Lisco and his team biopsied several of her new tumors, they found that the woman\u2019s skin cancer was being driven by something they hadn\u2019t seen before: a group of HPVs called beta HPV.
\nAbout 90% of people carry a strain of beta HPV. Usually, the virus lives on the skin and doesn\u2019t integrate into the DNA of skin cells.
\n\u201cWe shake hands and we pick up those viruses, but if our immune systems are under control, we are fine,\u201d Lisco said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a different group of HPV strains \u2014 alpha HPVs \u2014 that are linked to a range of cancers. Alpha HPVs live on mucus membranes and can integrate into DNA, causing cancers of the cervix, anus, head and neck.
\nThe woman in the case report had a genetic condition that weakened her T-cells (a type of immune cell), leaving her immunocompromised. This allowed the beta HPV living on her skin to behave more like alpha HPV, integrating their DNA into her skin cells and replicating undisturbed, turning the cells cancerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know how much you can directly apply the information from one patient to the wide variety of patients,\u201d said Dr. Anthony Oro, professor of dermatology at Stanford Medicine, who wasn\u2019t involved in the case.
\nHowever, \u201cit suggests that, in the event that the T-cell arm of the immune system is not doing its job, beta-type HPV viruses could contribute to skin cancer, and maybe other kinds of cancers as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The patient needed a stem cell transplant, which replaced her defective T-cells with T-cells that could prevent the HPV from replicating.
\n\u201cWe needed to give this patient a whole new immune system,\u201d Lisco said. It worked. Three years post-transplant, the woman\u2019s skin cancer has not returned.<\/p>\n
The discovery of beta HPV as a potential cause of skin cancer in immunocompromised individuals highlights the complex relationship between the immune system and HPV. While the risk of beta HPV causing skin cancer in healthy individuals is low, this finding emphasizes the importance of monitoring immunocompromised patients more closely and taking preventive measures against UV radiation. Further research is needed to understand the role of beta HPV in skin cancer and to explore potential cross-protection from the Gardasil HPV vaccine.<\/p>\n
Q: What is the new cause of skin cancer discovered by doctors at the National Institutes of Health?
\nA: The new cause of skin cancer is a type of human papillomavirus (HPV) called beta HPV, which can integrate into the DNA of skin cells and cause cancerous lesions to form.
\nQ: Is beta HPV a common cause of skin cancer?
\nA: No, beta HPV is not a common cause of skin cancer in healthy individuals. The risk is higher in immunocompromised individuals.
\nQ: How can I protect myself from skin cancer caused by beta HPV?
\nA: You can protect yourself by taking preventive measures against UV radiation, such as wearing sunscreen and covering up your skin from the sun.
\nQ: Is the Gardasil HPV vaccine effective against beta HPV?
\nA: The Gardasil HPV vaccine protects against nine strains of alpha HPV, and it is unclear how much cross-protection, if any, it provides against beta HPV.
\nQ: What is the treatment for skin cancer caused by beta HPV?
\nA: The treatment for skin cancer caused by beta HPV may involve surgery, immunotherapy, and stem cell transplantation to replace defective T-cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to Skin Cancer Doctors at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a new cause of skin cancer, according to a case report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. What Causes Skin Cancer The culprit is a type of human papillomavirus (HPV) that\u2019s regularly found on the skin. It\u2019s long been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/media.nbcchicago.com\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2153541224.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&resize=1200%2C675&w=1200&resize=1200,675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25588,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25586\/revisions\/25588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}