Abstract
Non-melanoma skin cancer primarily affects geriatric patients as evidenced by the fact that only 20% of these cancers are diagnosed in patients under the age of 60 years. Of importance, geriatric skin responds to procarcinogenic ultraviolet B radiation (UVB) in a manner that permits the establishment of tumor cells. Recent studies have indicated that wounding of geriatric skin with fractionated resurfacing lasers and dermabrasion upregulates fibroblast production of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and normalizes the procarcinogenic acute UVB response consisting of basal keratinocytes proliferating while still harboring unrepaired DNA damage. The present studies tested the ability of wounding with a commercially available microneedling device to upregulate IGF-1 levels and normalize the geriatric UVB response. Geriatric volunteers were treated with a microneedling device on buttock skin and 3 months later the IGF-1 levels and UVB responses tested in wounded vs control skin. Wounding via microneedling upregulated IGF-1 and resulted in lower levels of basal keratinocytes proliferating with unrepaired DNA damage. The ability of microneedling to protect against the formation of UVB-damaged proliferating keratinocytes indicates the potential of this wounding modality to reduce aging-associated non-melanoma skin cancer.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the assistance of the Wright State Physicians Pharmacology Translational Unit for assistance in these studies. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01 HL062996 to JBT; R01 AG048946 to JBT and DFS), VA Merit Award (1101CX000809 to JBT).
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JBT, MGK, NMW, EC, AMA, ASM, and DFS all performed the research. JBT, DFS, and EC designed the research study. JBT wrote the paper.
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Travers, J.B., Kemp, M.G., Weir, N.M. et al. Wounding with a microneedling device corrects the inappropriate ultraviolet B radiation response in geriatric skin. Arch Dermatol Res 312, 1–4 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-019-02001-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-019-02001-z