Melanoma tumor syndromes

Source: DermatologyTimes, June 2020

Recognition of patients with hereditary melanoma is important not only because these individuals require careful surveillance for future primary melanomas, but also because they may be predisposed to multiple other types of malignancies because of their genetic mutation, says Hensin Tsao, M.D., Ph.D., professor of dermatology and director, MGH Melanoma and Pigmented Lesion Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

“When we talk about familial melanoma today, we are moving away from a pure focus on patient susceptibility to develop multiple melanomas and towards awareness that cutaneous melanomas may be part of a mixed tumor syndrome,” Dr. Tsao says. Dr. Tsao spoke about melanoma tumor syndromes at the 2020 Dermatology Foundation Clinical Symposium.

“For some patients, the melanoma or another diagnostic melanocytic tumor may be a harbinger of risk for other internal malignancies. Early identification of these patients can be important so that they can be referred to other specialists as appropriate for additional cancer screenings,” he adds.

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