Wednesday, May 08, 2024 The Phase III Team Award for Intergroup-Led Trials was presented to the ME15 Team at Odette Cancer Centre (Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre) at the CCTG Spring Meeting this weekend. The team members include, Dr. Frances Wright (QI), Roxana Marmolejo, Christina Siwak."We are absolutely thrilled to be the recipients of this CCTG Phase III Team Award. We have a fantastic team who work extremely hard to provide our patients with the option of participating in this potentially practice-changing trial, MelMart, the melanoma margins trial."The ME15 international trial is investigating the use of smaller surgical margins to reduce the extent of surgery in Stage 2 melanoma patient. Larger surgical margins result in disfigurement, wound discomfort, and time away from work and, if positive, will change practice in Canada and around the world. With the current lack of randomized data, international guidelines suggest WLE margins of 1-3cm around a stage II melanoma. Such surgery results in a defect of 3cm to 8cm (a result of a 1-3cm margin on either side of the melanoma which itself can be 1-2cm). In certain parts of the body where the skin is tight or there is less excess skin (e.g. mid-lower forearm, upper back or lower leg), this defect may need more extensive surgery such as a skin graft/skin flap to close the skin. Wider margins can increase morbidity, hospitalization rates, and recovery time and delay adjuvant systemic therapy. Patient groups emphasized the importance of minimizing disfigurement with surgery, wound discomfort, and time away from work, which may occur with narrower margins of excision.
