Even though clinical trials were stopped following the likelihood of death among patients using a cream that contained a commonly used acne drug called tretinoin,evidence showed that this therapy was not responsible for the deaths.

"The potential of retinoid compounds to prevent cutaneous malignant lesions (skin cancers) has been of considerable interest, and some are effective for this purpose," the authors write as background information in the research article, published in the Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

They add that the Veterans Affairs Topical Tretinoin Chemoprevention (VATTC) Trial was launched in 1998 to assess whether high-dose therapy with a cream containing one such retinoid, tretinoin, could prevent cancer.

During the study, 1,131 veterans - 97 per cent men, average age 71 - were randomly assigned to apply either a cream containing 0.1 per cent tretinoin or an unmedicated cream daily to their face and ears. They were then examined by a dermatologist every six months, with a planned study end date of Nov. 15, 2004.

The article further highlights the fact that a report prepared for one of the study's several oversight committees in 2004 identified a statistically significant increase in the number of deaths among study participants in the group using tretinoin, and the trial was consequently halted six months early, in May 2004.

Dr. Martin A. Weinstock, of the VA Medical Center and Brown University, Providence, R.I., and colleagues assessed the data collected during the study to assess the relation of the medication to death risk.