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Carcinogenesis: UV Radiation*

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Textbook of Aging Skin

Abstract

Skin cancer offers the best picture of how a carcinogen causes human neoplasia. The basic principles of carcinogen exposure and slow development – discovered when Sir Percivall Pott traced scrotal cancers in adults to childhood employment as a chimney sweep – also apply to sunlight-induced cancers [1, 2]. The process begins with carcinogen exposure, DNA damage, and failure to repair DNA or apoptotically eliminate the damaged cell [3–6]. A mutant gene arises in a single cell, which then expands into a mutant clone [7]. Rare cells of this clone repeat the carcinogenesis cycle to generate mutations in additional genes. Sunlight acts at each of these steps.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    *This chapter is adapted with permission from Ch. 112 of Wolff, E, Goldsmith, L, Katz, S, Gilchrest, B, Paller, A and Leffell, D (eds.), Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, 7th ed., vol. 1, pp 999–1006, Mc-Graw-Hill, 2007.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Therapeutic Radiology, Genetics, and Dermatology, Yale School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St./HRT 213, New Haven, CT, 06520-8040, USA

    Douglas E. Brash, Timothy P. Heffernan & Paul Nghiem

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  1. Douglas E. Brash
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  2. Timothy P. Heffernan
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  3. Paul Nghiem
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Correspondence to Douglas E. Brash .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Procter & Gamble Company, 6110 Center Hill Avenue, 45224, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Miranda A. Farage Ph.D. (Principal Scientist) (Principal Scientist)

  2. The Procter & Gamble Company, 6110 Center Hill Avenue, 45224, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Kenneth W. Miller Ph.D. (Associate Director) (Associate Director)

  3. Department of Dermatology, University of California, School of Medicine, 222 SE 8th Ave., Suite 563, 94122, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Howard I. Maibach M.D. (Professor) (Professor)

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Brash, D.E., Heffernan, T.P., Nghiem, P. (2010). Carcinogenesis: UV Radiation*. In: Farage, M.A., Miller, K.W., Maibach, H.I. (eds) Textbook of Aging Skin. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89656-2_56

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89656-2_56

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-89655-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-89656-2

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