Comparative study of chemotherapy-induced skin effects and aged skin

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24791912
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Plastic surgery
• Research Institution: Yokohama City University
• Principal Investigator: KOU Seiko 横浜市立大学, 附属市民総合医療センター, 助教 (60626373)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
• Keywords: 化学療法 / 加齢性皮膚変化 / 抗加齢医療

Research Abstract

We investigated the differences between chemotherapy-induced skin effects and aged skin to develop more effective cosmetic techniques for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced skin effects.
Normal aged skin and chemotherapy-affected skin both exhibited epithelial thinning, a reduced number of dermal papillae and vessels, and decreased multipotency of dermis-derived stem cell-like cells, compared with normal young skin. These findings indicate that the characteristic changes observed in aged skin and chemotherapy-affected skin are related to a reduction of stem cell-like cell in the dermis. In this study, however, we detected no clear difference between aged skin and chemotherapy-affected skin. Further studies with more skin samples from variously aged persons are needed.