WAILEA, HAWAII – It is time for a new system of classifying nevi, according to Ashfaq Marghoob, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.
“It was known for the last 30 or 40 years that we do need to subclassify nevi into groups, so as to better stratify for melanoma risk,” identifying groups of individuals who would benefit most from targeted screening, Dr. Marghoob said in a video interview at the meeting, provided by Global Academy for Medical Education/Skin Disease Education Foundation. But it has been clear that there are many flaws in the current classification system, he added.
This is beginning to change as new data emerge about gene mutations and other science that can better stratify “or segregate” the nevi into subsets, and “the hope is we will be better able to predict which subsets are associated with melanoma risk either within the lesion itself or poses an increased risk to the patient,” he explained.
“As our understanding grows, we will start to come out with subsets of nevi that have a certain clinical and dermoscopic morphology,” to help predict which patients would benefit most from being monitored very closely, with the aim of detecting – and curing – melanomas early, said Dr. Marghoob, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s regional skin cancer clinic in Hauppauge, N.Y.
He had no financial conflicts to disclose.
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