Black Salve as Self-Treatment for Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Black salve composition: An evaluation of the potential for normal tissue toxicity and treatment failure from black salve products

“…toxicities and treatment failures (Affleck and Varma, 2007;Bickle and Bennett, 2008;Brown et al, 2001;Eastman et al, 2014;Hou and Brewer, 2015;Jellinek and Maloney, 2005;Leecy et al, 2013;Ma et al, 2012;Osswald et al, 2005;Saltzberg et al, 2009;Schlichte et al, 2014) that in two cases resulted in patient death from metastatic basal cell carcinoma (Laub DR 2008) and metastatic melanoma (Sivyer and Rosendahl, 2014), this controversial, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) continues to be poorly regulated by government agencies.…”

Black salve in a nutshell

“…24 Another presented with a fungating scalp SCC that had grown despite nine months of black salve treatment. 25 Only two cases of primary melanoma treated with black salve have been reported in the literature; both developed metastatic disease. 26,27 By contrast, skin cancer excision has been evaluated in multiple trials with highly reliable outcomes.…”

“…• Pain -'burning' nature, may be intense 25,[38][39][40] • Abnormal skin pigmentation 22,41 • Ulceration with delayed wound closure 19,26,40 • Scarring -ranging from atrophic, hypertrophic to keloid formation 19,22,24,39,41 • Secondary infection 38 • Deformity -including nasal cartilage tissue loss [42][43][44][45] • Disease progression to metastasis [24][25][26][27] used it successfully on their own skin lesions. It can also be made in one's home by purchasing the ingredients online.…”

A Review of Black Salve: Cancer Specificity, Cure, and Cosmesis

“…Nonmelanoma skin cancers have also been treated with black salve. Squamoproliferative lesions include two SCCs [ 40 , 42 ] and a keratoacanthoma (KA) [ 41 ]. While one patient showed no evidence of persisting SCC on partial biopsy of their black salve treatment site, the other two patients showed persisting malignancy.…”

“…While one patient showed no evidence of persisting SCC on partial biopsy of their black salve treatment site, the other two patients showed persisting malignancy. One presented with a 10 cm diameter scalp SCC with perineural invasion and regional lymph node metastases despite black salve application [ 40 ].…”