Darrell S. Rigel, MD, MS took to the podium to update us on the current state of skin cancer diagnosis and treatment. He began by reviewing the staggering magnitude of the problem—in 2018, the number of new cases of skin cancer in the United States is expected to near double that of all other malignancies combined!
Dr. Rigel then hammered the message home by reviewing the meteoric rise in skin cancer incidence rates over the past several decades. He reminded us that although melanoma is the most deadly skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma is also responsible for significant mortality, with an absolute number of deaths of similar magnitude to renal cancer, oropharyngeal carcinoma, and melanoma in the central and southern United States.
He used the concerning rise in skin cancer incidence as the perfect segue into a discussion of the importance of photoprotection as a means of primary prevention. He reviewed new data calling into question the belief that increasing SPF does not offer additional protection above SPF 50, showing that in real-world settings (where sunscreen is often not applied to the recommended 2 g/cm2), higher SPF provides additional protection. He then discussed the roles of antioxidants and the extract polypodium leucotomos in sun protection.
Dr. Rigel then moved on to cover advances in the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer, including the use of hedgehog-pathway inhibitors for the treatment of advanced basal cell carcinoma. He followed this with a discussion on melanoma, highlighting novel adjuncts for diagnosis such as electrical impedance spectroscopy (Nevisense®) as well as prognostic tools such as the 31-gene expression profile test (DecisionDx-Melanoma®). Finally, Dr. Rigel closed the knowledge-packed session with a review of the existing guidelines for the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers and melanoma.