There is a new drug to fight skin cancer for the sun-splashed masses of Arizona. The drug, vismodegib, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in January for people with an advanced form of one type of skin cancer, basal-cell carcinoma. New research unveiled last week by local doctors and other scientists shows that people with an inherited form of the skin cancer also benefit from the drug. "This drug offers hope where there was none before," said Aleksander Sekulic, a Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale dermatologist who was the lead author on one of two studies published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Arizona Republic by Ken Alltucker

Tags: Aleksander Sekulic, Arizona Republic, Cancer, carcinoma, Food and Drug Administration, New England Journal of Medicine, Preventive Medicine, Research, skin cancer