$1 million grant to RI Hospital M.D. for primary care melanoma screening traini...( Providence RI Rhode Island Hospital...),Health

Providence, RI Rhode Island Hospital dermatologist Martin Weinstock, MD, PhD, has received a $1 million, 2-year Team Science Award grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance to serve as principal investigator to develop a training program for primary care physicians to improve melanoma screening in primary care. The goal is to develop a web-based training module that will lead to earlier detection of melanoma and ultimately reduce the number of melanoma deaths by half.

According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 68,720 new melanomas will be diagnosed in the United States this year. While melanoma accounts for only about five percent of all skin cancer cases, it has by far a much higher mortality rate than the more common types.

Weinstock, who is also a professor of dermatology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, says, "Conventional education programs have stabilized mortality rates, however, an increasing body of evidence indicates that effective early detection is our best hope for cutting melanoma deaths by at least half in the near future." He continues, "We need to change our methods to get a substantial reduction in deaths."

He notes that knowledge and skills for melanoma screening remain low in the primary care area and performance of thorough skin self-examinations also remains low. The grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance will allow Weinstock and other researchers to develop a new training program that will target these issues. He says, "Through this grant, we are now able to develop an early detection training program that is web-based for widespread use and grounded in the realities of primary care delivery. We believe the program we are developing will allow a quantum leap in interactivity compared to prior efforts in melanoma screening."

The training will also incorporate the use of dermoscopy, the use of a specialized microscope to examine skin lesions, into the realm of p
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