Testing Patients With Melanoma
Ragini Kudchadkar, MD, assistant professor, medical oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses testing in patients with melanoma.
Ragini Kudchadkar, MD, assistant professor, medical oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses testing in patients with melanoma.
If a patient with melanoma is not on a clinical trial, Kudchadkar says, they need to be tested if they have a chance to benefit from a targeted therapy.ThoughBRAFmutational status is typically looked at in patients with stage IV disease, most physicians believe that a high-risk patient with stage III disease should also be tested. This population of patients has a high risk of recurrence, Kudchadkar says, sometimes as high as 70%.
Clinical Pearls
Kudchadkar says she does not recommend testing patients with early stage disease, as they can be cured with surgery alone.
- Testing needs to be done for those patients who have a chance to benefit from a targeted therapy
