Aldara cream, new hot skin cancer treatment

The latest hot topic in the skin care world is Aldara cream, which is used to treat actinic keratosis, superficial basal cell carcinoma and genital warts. Aldara Cream is a skin-use only prescription medicine.

Common side effects, experienced by those using Aldara Cream, mainly involve skin reactions in the application area. These can include redness and swelling, a sore, blisters, or ulcers, skin harding or thickening, other noticeable effects are skin peeling, scabbing and crusting, itching, burning, and changes in skin color.

Exposure to sunlight (including sunlamps) should be avoided When using Aldara Cream, because of concern of heightened sunburn susceptibility. Protective clothing should be worn by patients when using Aldara Cream.

Sexual contact should also be avoided whilst the cream is on the skin, especially as it is suspected that Aldara Cream may weaken condoms and diaphragms. The effects of Aldara Cream on the transmission of external genital warts is as yet not fully known, although new external genital warts may develop during treatment.

Aldara Cream works from within by activating the body's own immune system, it is claimed that the cure rate ranges from 80 to 85 percent. Because this is considered a lower than average success rate, Aldara cream is usually seen as a back-up method for the treatment of skin cancers, rather than the 1st choice of treatments.