Managing non-melanoma skin cancer often involves a team-based approach. Expert Dr. Barbara Ma reviews the key members of the healthcare team and explains their role in patient care and treatment decisions.
Dr. Barbara Ma, is Cutaneous Oncologist and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an Assistant Attending Physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Ma.
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Transcript
Jamie Forward:
What sort of questions should patients be asking about their treatment plan?
Dr. Barbara Ma:
Sure. So, they should understand that it’s often quite multidisciplinary.
Depending on the location and the size of the lesion. So, I think that, if they’re seeing dermatology, then they can also be like, “Oh, well, do you think this is something that you could address with excision alone or do you think this is something that’s more sensitive that involves maybe a more specialized surgeon or a radiation oncologist?” So, the multidisciplinary question – again, it always is multidisciplinary care, but it doesn’t hurt from the patient to be informed of that and proactively ask about that, too. Usually, your doctor’s probably already thinking about it, but it never hurts to ask.
Jamie Forward:
Sure. And you mentioned the multidisciplinary healthcare team – so, who’s on that team?
Dr. Barbara Ma:
Sure. So, the dermatologist is usually the person who makes the initial diagnosis because they did the biopsy. If they think that it’s a small enough lesion that they can get clear margins on, then usually it’s probably just the dermatologist.
But they would also loop in the oncologic surgeon if they think that it’s a more cosmetically sensitive area that would benefit from the expertise of a surgical oncologist – they’ll loop that person in. Or if it’s difficult to surgically assess whether they can get clear margins, then they also loop in the radiation oncologist, if needed.
And then, the medical oncologist does play a role if, for example, let’s say it’s a bigger lesion that could benefit from shrinkage or evaluating for that with immunotherapy – then medical oncologists would also be on that team. And then, of course, I don’t want to forget the pathologist who’s also making the call. Who also, when they look at the sample, they also give characteristics and they also are the ones that tell us our margin’s clear or what are things that tell us about the nature of the lesion. So, don’t want to forget about the dermatopathologist, also.