In this short video, Associate Professor Tony Dicker gives his top tips for how to optimise and improve scarring results for patients following skin surgery, particularly skin cancer surgery. Continue reading “[2 min watch] How to optimise scarring results in skin surgery” →

In this short video, Associate Professor Tony Dicker gives his top tips for providing a high standard of wound care for your patients following minor surgical procedures on the skin, such as in skin cancer surgery. Continue reading “[4 min watch] Top tips for post-surgery wound care” →

In this short video, Associate Professor Tony Dicker provides his top tips for reducing patients’ pain during surgery and how to manage pain and discomfort after procedures. Continue reading “[4 min watch] How to reduce pain during and after surgery” →

What steps can you take to prevent and manage infections after surgery? In this short video, Associate Professor Tony Dicker provides his expert advice on managing infections in the primary care setting. Continue reading “[4 min watch] Top tips for preventing & managing post-surgery infections” →

In this latest podcast, Dr Helena Rosengren – a Skin Cancer & Aesthetic Doctor in Townsville, Queensland – gives a sneak peek into her presentation at the upcoming Skin & Skin Cancer Conference and Masterclasses in Brisbane on 21-24 July 2022, where she will talk about antibiotic prophylaxis for surgical site infection. Continue reading “[Podcast] Antibiotic prophylaxis for surgical site infection” →

This month we take a look at “hypertrophic scars” and their treatment. I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of these – thankfully, not in patients that I have operated on (and I will deal with why that is, in a future Research Review), but in others’ patients. Continue reading “Research review: How to treat hypertrophic scars” →

Do you see patients with a fear of needles? In this short video, Dr Tony Dicker provides his top three tips for decreasing pain from injections and making procedures more pleasant for your patients. Continue reading “[2 min watch] Top 3 tips for decreasing pain from injections” →

In this short video, Dr Tony Dicker offers his top tips for managing common skin cancer surgery complications you might encounter as a GP, primary care or skin cancer doctor. Continue reading “[2 min watch] Tips to manage common skin cancer surgery complications” →

This month’s research article is from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia. The authors consider the important question: what is the risk of melanoma recurrences among patients with a high-risk, localised melanoma? Continue reading “[3 min read] Risk of recurrence in patients with high-risk, localised melanoma” →

25 – 28 July 2018 | Brisbane 

The 10^th Skin Cancer Summit & Masterclasses saw international thought leaders in skin cancer medicine converge in Brisbane to collaborate with GPs from across Australia. The 2018 program once again covered a broad range of topics relevant to doctors working in primary care skin cancer medicine. The Masterclasses focused on core day-to-day material, as a way to reinforce and extend knowledge. The two-day Summit opened up new areas of study, enquiry and interest.

      

 

Dermoscopy Masterclass: 25 July 2018

The first Masterclass focused on diagnosis through dermoscopy and was run by Prof Ash Marghoob (USA) and Dr Aimilios Lallas (Greece).

Dr Lallas used the concept of false positive and false negative diagnoses to reinforce our diagnostic accuracy. Clearly, as morphology overlaps the distinction between what is a cancer, and what is not, can provide confusion.

This broad concept was beautifully extended by Prof Marghoob through his presentation on difficult to diagnose melanomas. As we all know, the easy ones are easy. It is the hard-to-diagnose that we risk missing!

The session then moved into important body sites – the face and acral areas, which are important because the morphology of lesions on these sites is different from morphology on other sites. If we don’t understand this and know how the appearances differ, then we can’t accurately recognise cancers.

Our presenters then extended these important concepts to difficult to diagnose non-melanoma skin cancers, as it is not just melanomas that can be tricky. And, as always, we finished with a series of interactive cases.

 

Surgery Masterclass: 26 July 2018

The second Masterclass covered surgery of the ear. The ear, of course, is a common site for skin cancer because it is so exposed to solar damage. Ear surgery is important because cosmetic results are very visible to the patient and others. So, it is essential to get the surgery right, cure the cancer, and repair the defect as sympathetically as possible.

Dr Con Pappas and Dr Tony Azzi provided a comprehensive overview of how to prepare for and conduct surgery of the ear, across almost all imaginable lesions.

 

Summit: 27-28 July 2018

    

The Summit program is deliberately designed to be a mix of very practical, everyday material that supports our daily practice.

This year, key examples of these sessions were those on ‘effectiveness of dermoscopy’, ‘why we miss melanoma’, and ‘radiation oncology’. We also ran sessions that we hope will keep you and your patients safe, including ‘what interests the watchdog’ and ‘monitoring tips and traps’.

      

We deliberately moved into the future and sought to explore and speculate on what might be. It is clear that artificial intelligence is already with us, and yet most of us don’t really see what is happening and what might be coming. As educated and interested professionals, it is worth being aware of these trends.

We also like to keep you across what is happening outside clinical practice, in areas that are relevant to running your business. So, our sessions on how to run a successful business, and how others organise their own practices, are always very popular.

 

Skin Cancer Institute Gala Dinner

The Skin Cancer Summit closed with a Gala Dinner at the Queensland Cricketers’ Club. Hosted by the Skin Cancer Institute, the inaugural ‘White Out Skin Cancer’ Gala Dinner donated all proceeds to QIMR Berghofer. The delegates’ generosity and support will make a difference to many lives as we take a step closer to our vision of a world where nobody dies from skin cancer.