Already Found Virus Causes Skin Cancer

One virus, previously unknown, may be the cause of a form of skin cancer is a rare but especially off the impact on the elderly and the body's immune system was weak due to AIDS.

The researchers at the University of Pittsburg Cancer Institute in the United States believe they have found perpetrators, which can cause infection, after identifying the DNA sequence of the virus in 80% tumor cells Merkell.

DNA belonging to a foreign virus, called Merkel cell polymavirus (MCV), which integrates into the tumor genome itself in a way that indicates that the virus is triggered the growth of cancer.

If the new virus was the cause, the virus offers promise for the treatment of cancer is very aggressive. Experts suspect the virus was shut because of the protein causes cancer genes or the growth of the tumor.

"The information that we may be able to earn their way to the examination of blood or a vaccine to improve the handling of disease prevention and help," said Dr. Patrick Moore, who with colleagues published the findings in the journal Science.

Merkell cell carcinoma of the developing nerve cells that react to touch or pressure. Events have been increased threefold in the last 20 years; now there are as many as 1,500 cases per year in the United States.

Some 50% of advanced disease patients live for nine months or less. Merkel cell carcinoma is not the first cancer associated with a virus, and will not be the last.

The virus causes of cancer is the most exposed to HPV, or human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer and cervix become targets of two new vaccines anti-cancer, Gardasil and Cervatix, from Merck & Co Inc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Kaposi `s sarcoma, the most dangerous conditions on public AIDS patients and the most common cancer in Africa, also caused by a virus.