disaster relief; Dana Dickey discovers the dermatological equivalent of the morning-after pill.(sunburn)(www.skincancer.org)(Column)

Byline: Dana Dickey

Believe it or not, I did it again. I got sunburned. It happened in Buenos Aires-a city, for goodness sake, not some beach on an island. On a whim I went to a soccer match. I know. You're supposed to apply sunscreen every time you go outside. But I was in a hurry, so I kitted myself out in a little sundress, thinking I'd be under an awning. Turns out my Argentinean friends thought nothing of arriving three hours early and-bless their tawny skin-standing in the sun.

You'd think I'd know better. As a travel journalist, I've logged many miles to sun-drenched destinations. And for the most part, I wear hats, use SPF 30, and lean into the shade. Still, sometimes I forget, or I forget on purpose. Such imperfect sun care is common, says Darrell Rigel, M.D., professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center. He literally wrote the book on dermatology, though he spares me the graphic photos in his new 800-page tome, Cancer of the Skin. (You can see what the four types look like yourself by checking out www.skincancer.org.)

"One of the biggest hurdles is that people are sure they won't be the one in five who gets skin cancer," he says. Like other indulgent, risky behaviors, from scarfing down a fatty meal to having unprotected sex, humans will be human and slip up. Physicians have finally acknowledged the need to do more than preach sun abstinence or cut off cancerous growths only after they've formed. A new drug, Aldara, seems to stop precancerous lesions before they develop into malignant squamous cells; a similar cream for basal-cell carcinomas, the most common form of skin cancer, is expected to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration before the year's end. But what if you'd like to cover your tracks before trouble starts? Lasers and peels may help (see page 150), but what may be more effective is a highly anticipated cream called Dimericine, the dermatological equivalent of the morning-after pill.

To learn more, I visit the sleek labs of AGI Dermatics, just outside Manhattan. That's where David Brown, Ph.D., AGI's research director, performs experiments with the solar simulator, a machine that produces a six-hour sunburn in two minutes. A burn causes the skin cells' DNA to ...