Grant: Project Grant

More than 3 million people were treated for skin cancers in North America in 2015. Approximately 40% of all skin-cancer cases occur on a person's nose. When cancer is diagnosed on the face, and in particular on the nose, treatment options often lead to loss of function and significant disfigurement. The nose is the most prominent and conspicuous feature of the face, making deformities difficult to conceal, which can lead to emotional distress and social isolation along with the difficulty or loss of breathing through the nose.The structure of the nose is made of cartilage. Unfortunately, when skin cancer appears on the nose, the cartilage at the site of cancer is sacrificed during radiation or surgical treatment. To fix the sacrificed cartilage, nose surgeons harvest cartilage from the patients' rib, carve it into shape before using it to replace the sacrificed cartilage. Harvest of rib cartilage has many risks that could be life-threatening. These include infection and pneumothorax (collapsed lung). We have demonstrated the know-how to make nose cartilage from a small biopsy of cartilage taken from the nose. However, the quality of the made-cartilage varies from patient to patient. In this proposal, we plan to improve the quality of nose cartilage we make for the future surgical treatment of skin cancer patients.