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VIDEO: Speaker recommends shift in focus from cure to impact for BCC
NEW YORK — Aleksandar Sekulic, MD, PhD, associate director of the Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, presented updates on surgical and systemic therapy options to treat advanced basal cell carcinoma at HemOnc Today Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies.
Because of previous unmet medical needs in this area, researchers have focused on Hedgehog pathway inhibition. Sekulic discussed the management of toxicities, therapeutic resistance and the next steps in how to treat locally advanced and metastatic basal cell carcinoma with Hedgehog pathway inhibitors.
“With a drug class that works well but does have toxicities over the long term, sometimes refocusing from ‘cure at any cost’ to improvement may be useful,” Sekulic said. “This is also important for neoadjuvant use. Can you shrink the tumor and make the surgery smaller? Can you turn operable into inoperable? That is a possibility.”