Dr. Kraemer: We did a study here a few years ago with Accutane, which was very effective in preventing skin cancer in patients with xeroderma pigmentosum or XP. One patient would get 20 separate primarily skin cancers each year for many years - and she was just a teen-ager. We gave her the oral medicine and within two years she was getting only two or three cancers a year, a very much smaller number. Unfortunately, when we stopped the medicine, she started getting tumors again. And the medicine itself caused a number of side effects. It made her skin very sensitive to sunlight. It causes birth defects, so people on it can't get pregnant. It also causes calcification of tendons and ligaments. But Accutane is on the market for acne treatment. The people who are treated for acne are treated for just a short time, but patients with XP will have to be treated for a very long time.

There are thousands of retinoids and we hope that someday we can find a different retinoid that is equally as effective but not as toxic.