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Discovery and Treatment

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    • February 13, 2020 at 3:27 pm
    Hitchens
    Participant
      I am over 3 years out from diagnosis as 3a and I am NED. In a recent appointment with my Derm he restated a point that he has been saying consistently through my surveillance, that the research indicates that regardless of when a recurrence is discovered (actively through surveillance or when symptoms appear) the standard of care is the same and the outcome will be the same. Meaning that treatment will work or it won’t.

      I am from Canada so I know standards of care differ by country.

      Has anyone else had similar conversations/experience with members of their care team

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        • February 13, 2020 at 4:39 pm
        tkoss
        Participant
          my Onc repeatedly used the phrase ‘standard of care’ which she backed up with a copy of thee NNCM Guideline v. 32019 with my Stage and treatments highlited. she explained that the treatment proposed was what any Onc would prescribe for that stage of melanoma.

          you can google. also https://www.aimatmelanoma.org/ has a good layman’s description of stages and treatment.

          • February 13, 2020 at 6:53 pm
          ed williams
          Participant
            Hi there anon, I kind of like to look at the bright side of things and in the new 8th edition of staging document on page 17 (see link below) the stats would say that stage 3a patients on average 93% are alive at 5 years and 88% are alive at 10 years. Now that is pretty good stats and this is based on state of treatment from a couple of years ago before approvals of Pd-1 and targeted therapy for stage 3 folk. Go a little further and now there are trials opening for stage 2b and 2c patients see link below to keynote 716 which is available in several Canadian hospitals. https://cancerstaging.org/CSE/Physician/Documents/Melanoma%202.2.18.pdf https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03553836
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