At Athleisure Mag, we have always championed a number of reasons why Safe Sun is essential and making our readers aware of the importance of knowing about the effects of the sun and why it's important to protect your bodies. We had the chance to talk with Dr. Adil Daud, Co-Director of the Melanoma Clinical Research, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center to talk with him about a study that was released by The New England Journal of Medicine. This study focused on treatments for advanced melanoma patients that showed promise with the largest pooled analysis of patients with BRAF-mutated Metastatic Melanoma.
We sat down with Dr. Daud to get down to basics on skin cancer, melanoma, the different kinds of diseases in this area, treatment and more.
ATHLEISURE MAG: Can you tell us what skin cancer is and what the different types are?
DR. ADIL DAUD: Skin cancer includes basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma and other types of cancer.
AM: How is melanoma different than other skin cancers?
DR. AD: The biggest difference is that it has a tendency to spread to the rest of your body. So, when you look at the deaths caused by skin cancer, the majority of them are caused by melanoma.
AM: What is the difference between melanoma and advanced melanoma and why is it more aggressive and deadly than other skin cancers?
DR. AD: We don’t fully understand that, but one of the reasons is that it has this tendency to spread. Advanced melanoma refers to Stage IV melanoma where it has spread to the lymph nodes and the rest of your body – the lungs, liver, brain and other organs.
AM: Can one be cured from melanoma?
DR. AD: From early-stage melanoma, it can be cured. Most people are cured from surgery alone. With advanced melanoma, you can be alive and disease-free. And that’s what the subject of this study is. You probably can’t be cured as that’s not the terms that we use for advanced cancer. The study shows that 50% of melanomas have a mutation in this gene called BRAF and in those patients, many of them are very sensitive to the combination of Tafinlar and Mekinist – those are the 2 drugs that this study is dealing with. Basically, that study showed that a third of the patients are alive and a fifth of the patients were disease free for 5 years. That’s an important landmark to show that for the first time, that those that have the BRAF mutant kind of melanoma, you can have a good outcome even after 5 years.
AM: What are the mutation types of melanoma and how does one evaluate their treatment options?
DR. AD: We know that cancer can look the same under the microscope but can have different driver mutations. For melanoma specifically, about 50% of melanoma has a BRAF mutation and about 50% have other mutations of genes like RAS. There are a bunch of melanomas where today, we don’t know exactly what drives them forward. But we know about the 50% that have the BRAF mutation and that was the focus of this study.
AM: Can you tell us about the study and the promising treatment?
DR. AD: We’ve known for many years that the BRAF mutation kind of melanoma can be sensitive to the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib. The study shows us that even up to 5 years, a lot of patients with metastatic or advanced melanoma that’s prepped throughout your body can be disease free in some cases and alive at that 5 year landmark. It’s important to remember that a lot of these drugs have real side effects like fevers, chills, skin rashes and in some cases serious side effects like lung problems, heart problems and vision problems. So you need to be supervised by a medical oncologist.
AM: How can one prevent melanoma from happening?
DR. AD: One of the most important things you can do is to apply sunscreen, a hat and some protective clothing. Especially for children, we have realized that sun burns and sun exposure in childhood may drive some of these melanomas. So for them, it’s important to supply sunscreen, put on UV clothing and maybe avoid the sun during the 10am – 2pm time period where UV radiation is the most intense.
Read the August Issue of Athleisure Mag and see Something You Should Know | Advanced Melanoma.
