Melanoma meeting rounds up a busy year in melanoma research and treatment

HemOnc Today is proud to announce the Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies New York meeting, June 25-26, at the New York Mariott Marquis. This is designed as a premier meeting where clinicians can learn about the latest research in this fast-moving field, and how to apply current data to clinical practice.

HemOnc Today spoke to program director Sanjiv Agarwala, MD, HemOnc Today editorial board member, professor of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, and chief, oncology and hematology at St. Luke’s Cancer Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, about the meeting.

How did you come to be involved in this meeting?

I had been chairing a melanoma symposium in New York for the last 7 years. The meeting, formerly known as the International Symposium on Melanoma and Other Cutaneous Malignancies, had been a very successful spring meeting every year; we spent 2 days discussing melanoma and other cutaneous malignances with a national and international faculty of experts. It was attended by 250 or so doctors, nurses and other health care professionals every year. The meeting ended and we began working with HemOnc Today on the new meeting this year.

I’m a melanoma expert; I’ve been functioning as chairperson of an international symposium for 8 years, including this first year for HemOnc Today.

You helped organize the meeting from the beginning?

I have been the chairperson and organized the meeting from the beginning with the help of a committee. We independently put together an agenda, invite speakers, and coordinate with a comprehensive CME directive.

Which presentations are you most looking forward to?

It’s a very exciting year for melanoma. We have new drugs recently approved and drugs that are soon to be approved. We’re excited about presentations related to the new drug ipilimumab, which is an immunotherapy for melanoma, as well as targeted therapies that are targeting various pathways such as the BRAF pathway.

When you’re setting up the program, how do you decide what’s most important to your audience?

Most of the meeting comprises didactic lectures, case presentations and discussion on topics relevant to melanoma and other cutaneous malignancies. Clinicians and scientists, researchers and nurses can update themselves on what is new and relevant in melanoma right now. We have invited speakers who generally give 20-minute presentations.

Sanjiv Agarwala

We also have a call for abstracts, which are more original research that is new and ongoing; that’s a good way to ask the young investigator who has a research project in the lab that may not be ready for primetime, to present this data at a meeting where they can interact with other experts. The committee reviews submitted abstracts for oral presentation or poster display.

The agenda covers basic dermatology; surgical treatment of melanoma; adjuvant therapy; metastatic disease; other cutaneous diseases like CTCL; new drugs in development; the latest clinical trials; and the newest science. It’s a very comprehensive overview of melanoma, and we have case-based discussions that try to put it all together.

What are the most interesting new developments that are happening in melanoma research and treatment right now?

Starting on the diagnostic end, there are new tools that are being looked at for diagnosing melanoma of the skin before it spreads; that’s one thing we’re going to be discussing. We’re going to talk about new surgical techniques in terms of assessing melanoma staging. One thing we’re really excited about is the concept of targeting melanoma therapy by looking at mutation status of the tumors and using drugs that specifically target those mutations.

We’re also very excited about the immunotherapy approach; finally we have a drug, ipilimumab, which has shown a survival advantage in melanoma, so how do we utilize that more effectively and how do we combine that with other therapies? This will all be discussed at the meeting.

What can attendees expect to take back to the office?

What I would hope is that they have a good understanding of where the field stands today, and what is the best way to approach the disease from a diagnostic and therapeutic standpoint. What is the best way to approach a new patient with metastatic melanoma today in terms of what should we treat them with? We have new options from a year ago. So how should we approach a patient that has had previous treatment that has progressed? I want them to take that home with them and get a practical understanding of the science behind these new drugs and new approaches and how these pathways work, but more importantly, how to put that into clinical practice. How does someone who is seeing a patient with melanoma in their office tomorrow approach this patient with a state-of-the-art understanding in 2011, which is very different than it was just 6 or 12 months ago?

Has melanoma always been a fast-changing environment?

That has not been the case in the past few years. In the last year or so, things in melanoma have changed dramatically and it is a very fast-moving field now. I think this year people will want to come to this meeting, because there’s so much going on in melanoma. A lot of people are unable to keep up with new developments, so this would be an excellent opportunity for people to learn about these new drugs and new approaches and who are not quite clear how to approach them.

It’s more than just treatment and research, it’s clinical application.

That’s why this meeting is unique. There are other melanoma meetings in this country and internationally. But what sets our meeting apart is its practical approach. Knowing the signs is not enough; you have to know how to apply that to your patients in clinical practice.

It’s not just a meeting for melanoma experts. It’s also for the clinical oncologist or surgeon in practice, who really wants to put it all together and have a good practical understanding of how to approach a patient. The meeting offers an opportunity to get to know the disease and know what’s really going on today.

There can be a disconnect between people who work in universities and have the latest resources and research, and the clinician who’s seeing patients every day. How can you get the knowledge at the top to flow down to the people on the front line?

We’ve consistently gotten feedback from our attendees that this meeting is just that, it translates that information from the scientist to the clinician so that people can use the information. Historically we’ve had a large following by community oncologists every year, just to update themselves.

This is truly the meeting, in my opinion, that covers the basic science and the latest in theoretical information, but also brings it to a level that’s practical and usable for the regular clinician. That’s the most important aspect of this meeting. – by Jason Harris

The 2012 HemOnc Today Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies Meeting will be held April 13-14 at the Grand Hyatt, New York, NY. Learn more at HemOncToday.com/melanoma.