Melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer is a screenable, preventable cancer, yet one that is dramatically increasing.
It is the leading cause of death from a skin disease. Key to successful treatment of melanoma is understanding risks and recognizing symptoms early.
Selected Podcast
Melanoma Screening and Prevention
Featured Speaker:
Her expertise includes pediatric, adolescent, and adult dermatology. In addition to her position at Summit Medical Group, Dr. Badalamenti is Assistant Attending Dermatologist at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey.
Before joining Summit Medical Group, Dr. Badalamenti practiced privately in West Orange, New Jersey. She has delivered local, regional, national, and international invited presentations in her field. She is the author and coauthor of abstracts, articles, and book chapters concerning topics in dermatology, which are published in prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals. In addition, she is a contributing author for Comprehensive Dermatologic Drug Therapy, the gold standard textbook for dermatologic treatment. She has been listed in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 New Jersey Monthly "Top Doctors" listings
Stephanie Badalamenti, M.D. Ph.D.
Stephanie Badalamenti, MD, PhD, has more than 12 years' experience in general dermatology, cosmetic dermatology, and the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancers.Her expertise includes pediatric, adolescent, and adult dermatology. In addition to her position at Summit Medical Group, Dr. Badalamenti is Assistant Attending Dermatologist at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey.
Before joining Summit Medical Group, Dr. Badalamenti practiced privately in West Orange, New Jersey. She has delivered local, regional, national, and international invited presentations in her field. She is the author and coauthor of abstracts, articles, and book chapters concerning topics in dermatology, which are published in prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals. In addition, she is a contributing author for Comprehensive Dermatologic Drug Therapy, the gold standard textbook for dermatologic treatment. She has been listed in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 New Jersey Monthly "Top Doctors" listings
Organization: Summit Medical Group
Transcription:
Melanoma Screening and Prevention
Melanie Cole: Melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer, is a screenable, preventable cancer yet one that is dramatically increasing. My guest is Dr. Stephanie Badalamenti. She is a board-certified dermatologist at Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. Badalamenti. Tell us, what is melanoma?
Dr. Stephanie Badalamenti: Thank you for having me on your show, Melanie. Melanoma is one of the three types of skin cancer. Melanoma is when a brown spot on your skin grows and changes. This can be deadly if left undetected.
Melanie: Why are we hearing so much about melanoma now and we hear about it in the news as well?
Dr. Badalamenti: I think we’re hearing more and more about melanoma for both good reasons and bad reasons. The bad reasons are sadly, as you mentioned in the intro, melanoma is on the rise. It's one of the few early detectable skin cancers that continues to rise. About a hundred years ago, melanoma affected 1 in a 1,500 people, but now we have a 1-in-52 chance of getting melanoma. The rate of increase of melanoma is really, as you said, skyrocketing. I think on the outside, we’re hearing a lot more about melanoma because there's a lot of ways to better prevent ourselves from getting melanoma, we’re finding new ways to detect melanoma, and finally the treatment for melanoma finally is really exploding in terms of our understanding of the genetics. There are a lot of good things happening in our ability to prevent, detect, and treat melanoma.
Melanie: What are some risk factors for melanoma?
Dr. Badalamenti: Some of the risk factors for melanoma, number one is probably your family history, so knowing whether or not you have a family history is very important. Other things that affect our ability to get melanoma, some are genetic and some are modifiable. As I mentioned, family history, how many moles you have, these are things you can't change but things that you can modify is your exposure to the sun and your exposure to other forms of radiation. Particularly, you can modify your choice to go to a tanning salon. My colleagues and I are seeing several cases of young women, in their 20s and in their teens developing malignant melanoma, having had a strong history of going to a tanning salon. Most board-certified dermatologists really encourage their patients to stop that behavior. We’d also like our patients to just be smart in the sun. We want you to go in the sun, we want you to go to the beach, we want you to be active, we want you hiking, canoeing, kayaking, but we want you to do it smartly. Do it with sun-protective clothing on. It’s widely available at most stores. Do it off the peak hours, not between 10:00 and 3:00. Do it with sun screen on. If we modify the ways in which we enjoy ourselves in the sun, it will decrease our risk. The people who have a predisposition to getting melanoma, those with a family history or who have a history of all the sun exposure or used to go tanning, we encourage them to learn about detection.
Melanie: What’s involved in detection and skin cancer screening?
Dr. Badalamenti: I think our best advocates generally are our patients and our patients becoming more knowledgeable about melanoma. Just learning the ABCDEs of melanoma is a great start. If we could have all of our population begin to understand what a melanoma looks like then they can all be out on the prowl looking for melanomas and sending their friends and family to get checked when they see something unusual. I’d recommend our patients to look at our website and look up melanoma, but really we try to keep it simple. We call it the ABCDEs of melanoma. A stands for asymmetry. If you look at a spot on your body and it's asymmetric, that means it's not a circle or it's not an oval, that’s a potential sign for melanoma. B means the borders. If the borders aren’t sharp, that is, if it's not perfectly a circle but it kind of goes out and in, out and in, it looks more like a starfish, that would be an uneven border. C would be the colors. If you're looking at a spot on your body and you're saying, “Hmm, that’s not like all the other ones. This one has a lot of color;” if it’s more than brown or it's more than black, this multicolored lesion should be examined. D is for diameters. They’re spots on your body that are bigger than an eraser head; it should be examined. E is an evolving mole. If you just have this feeling that the mole is changing in some way, you should seek your doctor’s counsel. Your primary care physician will examine your moles and may refer you to your dermatologist or you can go straight to your dermatologist. A dermatology skin cancer screening is very simple. It takes about three minutes of your time and really can save your life.
Melanie: What is involved in skin cancer screening?
Dr. Badalamenti: Thanks for asking. Really, you meet the dermatologist, the dermatologist will look at you from head to toe and look at every single mole on your body, checking for the ABCDEs, adding their depths of experience, and also they’ll use a special instrument called negatoscope and to look with this little special light to look for more information about the mole. Many moles that you may find are concerning to you, they can reassure you. If the dermatologist sees a mole that’s unusually shaped or colored or is growing, they may do a biopsy, and that’s what a dermatologist would do to make the diagnosis of melanoma. They would actually remove the mole and send it off to another doctor for examination.
Melanie: If you find a suspicious lesion, how does the doctor analyze this?
Dr. Badalamenti: If a dermatologist sees a suspicious lesion on your body, they will do a biopsy. A biopsy is about a 10-second procedure where you just put a little numbing medicine in the skin and you remove the mole with a scalpel and they put the mole in a bottle, they put a Band-Aid on your skin, then the bottle is sent off to a special doctor called a dermatopathologist for analysis and that dermatopathologist looks at the skin under the microscope. It's really the dermatopathologist who makes the diagnosis, sends a report to the dermatologist, and the dermatologist receives the report and reviews the results with their patient. While most moles that we remove and send for biopsy are not melanoma, occasionally they come back as melanomas and then the dermatologist and the patient work together to get the patient the best care.
Melanie: Okay, Dr. Badalamenti, once someone is diagnosed with melanoma, what is the next course of treatment? What happens then?
Dr. Badalamenti: Okay. Once the dermatologist receives the report that says melanoma, they talk with the patient, and based on how invasive the melanoma is, the physician determines the course of action. Most melanomas do not invade the skin much, they’re very thin, and the course of action for the vast majority, over 80 percent of unusual moles, is just to excise it. The dermatologist and the patient discuss the results and they’re sent to another surgeon to excise the melanoma. Really, since you’re awake, just have a little more numbing medicine, the mole is removed, sutures are placed and that’s the entire treatment for melanoma. If, however, the melanoma is more invasive, the dermatologist will create a team to take care of the patient. In that case, the patient may need surgery and may need a form of chemotherapy or immunotherapy. There are several different options should the melanoma be more invasive.
Melanie: Dr. Badalamenti, what about the smartphones apps? Do they help detect skin cancer?
Dr. Badalamenti: Great question. Well, the data really doesn’t support smartphones apps. I'm really glad you raised that because on the one hand, I'm glad that people would consider getting an app, thinking about melanoma and having it readily available, but sadly the data does not support that they’re successful in detecting melanoma. While I'm enthused that people are working on the technology, the technology is not there and I would not trust my life to a smartphone app. If I was concerned enough to use a smartphone app on my mole, I would seek the advice of the doctor. The technology just isn't there. I look forward to the day when it is, but today it's not there. There are other types of technologies that are out in the news. There's a new melanoma finding machine that we read about in the newspaper, and this technology is just in its infancy and is now beginning to be used by internists to apply this technology to the mole to determine if it's a melanoma. Currently, the gold standard is to go see a dermatologist and be evaluated.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Badalamenti. In just 30 seconds, if you would, please give us your best advice about skin cancer, melanoma and prevention.
Dr. Badalamenti: My best advice to prevent melanoma is stay out of those tanning salon and enjoy the sun smartly. Stay sun-protected with sun-protective clothing and sunscreen. I also recommend that you become familiar with the ABCDEs of melanoma, go on the Internet, look what a bad mole looks like and if you see it on yourself or a friend, send them to their doctor. The exam is very easy. If a mole is detected and needs to be treated, the treatment is very easy. The cure rate is very high when things are found early. Don’t wait. Don’t wait to get a mole checked. The consequences of finding it late are very disturbing, while finding a melanoma early, the success rate and treatment is wonderful.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You're listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to summitmedicalgroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.
Melanoma Screening and Prevention
Melanie Cole: Melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer, is a screenable, preventable cancer yet one that is dramatically increasing. My guest is Dr. Stephanie Badalamenti. She is a board-certified dermatologist at Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. Badalamenti. Tell us, what is melanoma?
Dr. Stephanie Badalamenti: Thank you for having me on your show, Melanie. Melanoma is one of the three types of skin cancer. Melanoma is when a brown spot on your skin grows and changes. This can be deadly if left undetected.
Melanie: Why are we hearing so much about melanoma now and we hear about it in the news as well?
Dr. Badalamenti: I think we’re hearing more and more about melanoma for both good reasons and bad reasons. The bad reasons are sadly, as you mentioned in the intro, melanoma is on the rise. It's one of the few early detectable skin cancers that continues to rise. About a hundred years ago, melanoma affected 1 in a 1,500 people, but now we have a 1-in-52 chance of getting melanoma. The rate of increase of melanoma is really, as you said, skyrocketing. I think on the outside, we’re hearing a lot more about melanoma because there's a lot of ways to better prevent ourselves from getting melanoma, we’re finding new ways to detect melanoma, and finally the treatment for melanoma finally is really exploding in terms of our understanding of the genetics. There are a lot of good things happening in our ability to prevent, detect, and treat melanoma.
Melanie: What are some risk factors for melanoma?
Dr. Badalamenti: Some of the risk factors for melanoma, number one is probably your family history, so knowing whether or not you have a family history is very important. Other things that affect our ability to get melanoma, some are genetic and some are modifiable. As I mentioned, family history, how many moles you have, these are things you can't change but things that you can modify is your exposure to the sun and your exposure to other forms of radiation. Particularly, you can modify your choice to go to a tanning salon. My colleagues and I are seeing several cases of young women, in their 20s and in their teens developing malignant melanoma, having had a strong history of going to a tanning salon. Most board-certified dermatologists really encourage their patients to stop that behavior. We’d also like our patients to just be smart in the sun. We want you to go in the sun, we want you to go to the beach, we want you to be active, we want you hiking, canoeing, kayaking, but we want you to do it smartly. Do it with sun-protective clothing on. It’s widely available at most stores. Do it off the peak hours, not between 10:00 and 3:00. Do it with sun screen on. If we modify the ways in which we enjoy ourselves in the sun, it will decrease our risk. The people who have a predisposition to getting melanoma, those with a family history or who have a history of all the sun exposure or used to go tanning, we encourage them to learn about detection.
Melanie: What’s involved in detection and skin cancer screening?
Dr. Badalamenti: I think our best advocates generally are our patients and our patients becoming more knowledgeable about melanoma. Just learning the ABCDEs of melanoma is a great start. If we could have all of our population begin to understand what a melanoma looks like then they can all be out on the prowl looking for melanomas and sending their friends and family to get checked when they see something unusual. I’d recommend our patients to look at our website and look up melanoma, but really we try to keep it simple. We call it the ABCDEs of melanoma. A stands for asymmetry. If you look at a spot on your body and it's asymmetric, that means it's not a circle or it's not an oval, that’s a potential sign for melanoma. B means the borders. If the borders aren’t sharp, that is, if it's not perfectly a circle but it kind of goes out and in, out and in, it looks more like a starfish, that would be an uneven border. C would be the colors. If you're looking at a spot on your body and you're saying, “Hmm, that’s not like all the other ones. This one has a lot of color;” if it’s more than brown or it's more than black, this multicolored lesion should be examined. D is for diameters. They’re spots on your body that are bigger than an eraser head; it should be examined. E is an evolving mole. If you just have this feeling that the mole is changing in some way, you should seek your doctor’s counsel. Your primary care physician will examine your moles and may refer you to your dermatologist or you can go straight to your dermatologist. A dermatology skin cancer screening is very simple. It takes about three minutes of your time and really can save your life.
Melanie: What is involved in skin cancer screening?
Dr. Badalamenti: Thanks for asking. Really, you meet the dermatologist, the dermatologist will look at you from head to toe and look at every single mole on your body, checking for the ABCDEs, adding their depths of experience, and also they’ll use a special instrument called negatoscope and to look with this little special light to look for more information about the mole. Many moles that you may find are concerning to you, they can reassure you. If the dermatologist sees a mole that’s unusually shaped or colored or is growing, they may do a biopsy, and that’s what a dermatologist would do to make the diagnosis of melanoma. They would actually remove the mole and send it off to another doctor for examination.
Melanie: If you find a suspicious lesion, how does the doctor analyze this?
Dr. Badalamenti: If a dermatologist sees a suspicious lesion on your body, they will do a biopsy. A biopsy is about a 10-second procedure where you just put a little numbing medicine in the skin and you remove the mole with a scalpel and they put the mole in a bottle, they put a Band-Aid on your skin, then the bottle is sent off to a special doctor called a dermatopathologist for analysis and that dermatopathologist looks at the skin under the microscope. It's really the dermatopathologist who makes the diagnosis, sends a report to the dermatologist, and the dermatologist receives the report and reviews the results with their patient. While most moles that we remove and send for biopsy are not melanoma, occasionally they come back as melanomas and then the dermatologist and the patient work together to get the patient the best care.
Melanie: Okay, Dr. Badalamenti, once someone is diagnosed with melanoma, what is the next course of treatment? What happens then?
Dr. Badalamenti: Okay. Once the dermatologist receives the report that says melanoma, they talk with the patient, and based on how invasive the melanoma is, the physician determines the course of action. Most melanomas do not invade the skin much, they’re very thin, and the course of action for the vast majority, over 80 percent of unusual moles, is just to excise it. The dermatologist and the patient discuss the results and they’re sent to another surgeon to excise the melanoma. Really, since you’re awake, just have a little more numbing medicine, the mole is removed, sutures are placed and that’s the entire treatment for melanoma. If, however, the melanoma is more invasive, the dermatologist will create a team to take care of the patient. In that case, the patient may need surgery and may need a form of chemotherapy or immunotherapy. There are several different options should the melanoma be more invasive.
Melanie: Dr. Badalamenti, what about the smartphones apps? Do they help detect skin cancer?
Dr. Badalamenti: Great question. Well, the data really doesn’t support smartphones apps. I'm really glad you raised that because on the one hand, I'm glad that people would consider getting an app, thinking about melanoma and having it readily available, but sadly the data does not support that they’re successful in detecting melanoma. While I'm enthused that people are working on the technology, the technology is not there and I would not trust my life to a smartphone app. If I was concerned enough to use a smartphone app on my mole, I would seek the advice of the doctor. The technology just isn't there. I look forward to the day when it is, but today it's not there. There are other types of technologies that are out in the news. There's a new melanoma finding machine that we read about in the newspaper, and this technology is just in its infancy and is now beginning to be used by internists to apply this technology to the mole to determine if it's a melanoma. Currently, the gold standard is to go see a dermatologist and be evaluated.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Badalamenti. In just 30 seconds, if you would, please give us your best advice about skin cancer, melanoma and prevention.
Dr. Badalamenti: My best advice to prevent melanoma is stay out of those tanning salon and enjoy the sun smartly. Stay sun-protected with sun-protective clothing and sunscreen. I also recommend that you become familiar with the ABCDEs of melanoma, go on the Internet, look what a bad mole looks like and if you see it on yourself or a friend, send them to their doctor. The exam is very easy. If a mole is detected and needs to be treated, the treatment is very easy. The cure rate is very high when things are found early. Don’t wait. Don’t wait to get a mole checked. The consequences of finding it late are very disturbing, while finding a melanoma early, the success rate and treatment is wonderful.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You're listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to summitmedicalgroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.