Melanoma FAQ

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin the body naturally produces when our skin is exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) rays. It is essential to the body’s bone development and maintenance and emerging research has linked vitamin D deficiency with a number of serious health issues, including some cancers, diabetes and heart attacks.

Contrary to the tanning industry’s claims, the amount of UV exposure needed to produce sufficient vitamin D levels is very small and does not justify the need for sunbathing.  In one 20-minute tanning session, a tanning salon patron receives 4.5-7 times the amount of UVB radiation needed for vitamin D production, in addition to the exposure to harmful UVA rays.

There is simply no benefit to using UV to boost vitamin D levels since it is a known carcinogen. In fact, dermatologists say most Americans get the adequate amount of vitamin D by going outside in the course of their daily duties and through nutrients found in food.

Healthy vitamin D levels can easily be accomplished by diet and taking oral vitamin D supplements rather than UV-induced vitamin D. The two are chemically indistinguishable and the oral form does not pose a cancer risk. Elderly and those with darkly-pigmented skin are at the highest risk for vitamin D deficiency. Although they are least likely to be vitamin D deficient, young, fair-skinned individuals are most likely to seek vitamin D through UV exposure.

Consult your healthcare practitioner before beginning any vitamin/dietary supplement regiment. When taken in excessive amounts, vitamin D is difficult to remove from the body since it is not water soluble. Vitamin D excess can lead to too much calcium in the blood (hypercalcemia), which can create complications including kidney stones and kidney failure.

First, understand that you have been given a diagnosis - not a death sentence. Melanoma survival statistics describe a group of similar patients… but they may have nothing to do with your chance of survival. Often for melanoma treatment, there is no single answer. You must be an active participant in your treatment.  We have a pamphlet titled “Just Diagnosed with Melanoma…Now What?” available online. We can send you this and other materials upon request.  We encourage you to visit our online community to talk with patients, caregivers, and their families along with healthcare professionals.

In health care, clinical trials are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for new drugs or devices. These trials can only take place once satisfactory information has been gathered on the quality of the product and its non-clinical safety, and Health Authority/Ethics Committee approval is granted in the country where the trial is taking place. Depending on the type of product and the stage of its development, clinical trials enroll healthy volunteers and/or patients into small studies initially, followed by larger scale studies in patients that often compare the new product with the currently prescribed treatment. As positive safety data is gathered, the number of patients can be increased. Clinical trials can vary in size from a single center in a single country to multi-centers in multiple countries. The Health Authority in the United States is called the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) where a new product application is referred to as an Investigational New Drug application.

Visit the National Cancer Institute’s Web site (www.cancer.gov) to see if there are any clinical trials in your area in the type of melanoma that you have been diagnosed with.

The risk of recurrence increases with, the thickness of the primary tumor, with thicker tumors carrying greater risk than thin tumors, the presence of ulceration in the primary tumor and the presence of satellite metastases surrounding the primary tumor. The probability that melanoma will recur after appropriate treatment is characterized as low- intermediate-risk, or high-risk.

• Low-risk: less than 20% risk of recurrence
• Intermediate-risk: 20-50% risk of recurrence
• High-risk: greater than 50% risk of recurrence. High-risk melanoma has a high probability of having already spread to local or distant sites at the time of treatment.

The National Cancer Institute’s Web site (www.cancer.gov) has a section for statistics.  Click on “cancer topics”, then “melanoma” and scroll down to “statistics”.