Doctors see spots on skin-cancer cream

PHOENIX — An eggplant-based topical cream that claims to kill certain cancerous cells and is being marketed in email blasts has garnered mixed reactions from Tempe community members and other medical professionals.

The cream, dubbed Curaderm-BEC5 or Curaderm, was created by Dr. Bill E. Cham to battle and ultimately eliminate different types of diagnosed skin cancers, according to the distributors’ website.

The website says Curaderm is an effective treatment for Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC), Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC), and pre-malignant skin cancers.

These are very common ailments, says Dr. Steven Stratton of the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson.

“They often require surgery and sometimes, especially with SCC it gets too advanced,” Stratton says. “It could be fatal and requires chemotherapy.”

But there’s a catch: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved the product, according to the FDA’s website and Simon Agius, CEO of Curaderm’s offshore distribution company.

The company decided to leave its home base in Australia after dermatologists there made Curaderm available on a prescription-only basis and would not promote the product, Cham says. It decided to relocate to the Republic of Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific just west of Fiji where locals were more supportive and unbiased, Cham says.

In Vanuatu, the product is registered for treatment of keratosis, keratoacanthoma, BCCs and SCCs and sold on an over-the-counter basis. Sales of Curaderm outside Vanuatu are currently restricted to mail order and Internet sales, Agius says.

“What is clear, is that we have never advertised within the USA, never transacted a sale within the USA and therefore, we are an offshore choice for people who believe there must be a way to avoid the risks and cost of surgery,” Agius says. “We simply put the research, clinical trials and other information online from a country where the product is approved, and let people make their choice.”

When asked whether he could recommend Curaderm to his patients as an FDA unapproved medicine, Dr. Stratton says that he could not do so without seeing more research literature that proves that it works.

“You might part with $139.95 and get nothing,” Stratton says.

Agius said that Curaderm treats only non-melanoma skin cancers BCCs, SCCs, and sunspots.

“The need for surgery and serious doctor intervention for moles and melanoma is very important,” Agius says. “We never advise using Curaderm on melanoma.”

The cream contains a mixture of solasodine glycosides that can be found in edible fruits like the eggplant, Dr. Cham said in a written description of his research.

“Curaderm-BEC5 results in ulceration of the lesion site during treatment,” Cham wrote in an email. “However, during and post treatment the wound is quickly replenished with normal tissue with an excellent cosmetic result,” Dr. Cham said.

Dr. Cham said that Curaderm has helped 100,000 people — the majority being in Australia and the United Kingdom, where 10 dermatological centers studied numerous patients.

At least one potential user seemed supportive of the product. Arizona State University freshman Kathy Pham said that it sounds like a good thing that people with cancer should try it even if the product fails to work in the end.

But medical industry experts, such as Dr. Gus Kotsanis, the medical director of the Texas Metabolic Institute, expressed his doubt of the validity of Curaderm’s outcomes.

Kotsanis says his opinion on the product was not formulated based on Dr. Cham’s claims. He says he would have to see the product prove successful with many of his own patients to fully accept its claims.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.