Keep wearing the sunscreen

I was fortunate to be able to attend four conferences in 2014. The World Congress on Cancers of the Skin, held in Edinburgh last year was the last one I attended. The talks on the first day covered prevention and seemed rather repetitive as the problems encountered in each country were rather similar.

The next day was on what are generally referred to as non-melanoma skin cancers. This I found much more interesting. The scientific sessions approached the understanding of initiation, progression and spread of these cancers from many angles. I tried to summarize the diversity of the talks I attended in a diagram below. The most fascinating developing area extends beyond the tumour cells themselves. Skin cancer cells require changes to occur in their surroundings as well, providing a permissive stromal (extracellular matrix) and immunological environment to progress. 

The malignant melanoma day followed and was really new to me but equally fascinating especially regarding the progress that has been made with new drugs that inhibit BRAF. However, it is very concerning how many ways the BRAF inhibitors can be evaded and unclear what combination of drugs might be used in the future that will work for every case of malignant melanoma. At the end of the day I was exhausted with the complexity of the disease and really began to think prevention might not be exciting but it is definitely better than any drug combination.

The diagram is based on the talks from the Molecular Science track and plenary sessions. A full list of speakers can be found in the programme at http://www.wccs2014.org/welcome/