‘Just Don’t Use It’ Says Doctor of Black Salve for Skin Cancer
You’re not seriously considering treating skin cancer with something from Walmart, are you? (Photo: Getty Images)
Natural doesn’t always mean safer.
According to research published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, the majority of patients who are using an over-the-counter remedy called black salve to treat damaged skin or skin cancer are doing so without their dermatologist’s approval — and the results can be disastrous.
Black salve, which refers to a family of substances containing the corrosive ingredients zinc chloride and sanguinarine (an alkaloid derived from the bloodroot plant Sanguinaria canadensis), can eliminate the top layer of skin. But it comes with numerous possible side effects — such as infection, extensive scarring, and disfigurement — and can further complicate skin cancer. In some cases, the results can be life-threatening.
One online store describes the salve this way: “This formula is traditionally known for its ability to help draw out toxins and poison from an area, [and is] especially effective for helping to promote healthy skin function.”
This is not the first time this alternative remedy — which is available at national online retailers such as Walmart.com and Drugstore.com — has made the news. A case published in a 2014 issue of the journal Dermatology Practical & Conceptual reported on a woman who was diagnosed with superficial spreading melanoma and treated her condition with black salve. Five years later, she was diagnosed with “subsequent evidence of metastatic spread to the regional lymph nodes, lungs, liver, subcutaneous tissues and musculature.”
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“Basically, it’s a skin poison,” Doris Day, MD — a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in laser, cosmetic, and surgical dermatology, and a clinical associate professor of dermatology at the New York University Langone Medical Centers — tells Yahoo Beauty. “It just attacks and destroys living tissue and creates a scar. It’s killing the skin locally.”
She further explains that this controversial agent was used during primitive times. “The problem with black salve is that if you have a very strong concentration, if you use too much, or use it in a sensitive area (like the nose or the finger, which are end organs), you can really create a lot of damage.”
Also, not all skin cancers are the same. “Depending on the type of skin cancer, whether it’s basal cell, squamous cell, or melanoma, we have different treatment options,” said Day. For example, a patient with melanoma would not be prescribed a topical medication. “So you would never want to use something like black salve, and then change [the condition] when it’s already spread, and then we wouldn’t have the original diagnosis anymore.”
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Day refers to three “very cool” Food and Drug Administration-approved and medically tested topical creams that can treat some skin cancers: Imiquimod, Fluorouracil, and Ingenol Mebutate.
“There is something called immunomodulators, and what they do is tag the abnormal cells that your immune system will recognize as abnormal and attack them,” she explains. “So they’re modulating and regulating your immune system in a very focused way to destroy only the cancer cells. If you put it on normal skin where there are no cancer cells or sun damage, you will not get a response.”
Overall, Day does not recommend using black salve as a remedy for other skin conditions, either. “The only thing I could think of [that] it would possibly be for [is] a wart, but even for that we have better treatments on the market,” she concludes. “Just don’t use it.”
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