Before a wrestling tournament in early 2020, Samuel Gee, then 15, underwent a skin check to make sure he didn’t have ringworm that could spread to others.
“He was like, ‘It’s not a inguinal hernia, but likely a swollen lymph node,’” Gee recalls.
“That was when they said, ‘OK you’re cured.’” Melanoma Melanoma occurs most often in “older white males,” and the average age of a patient with metastatic melanoma is in their 60s, says Dr. Hussein Tawbi.
People often develop skin cancer, including melanoma, because of sun exposure.
“It’s very important that we take care of ourselves, and I think a lot of young people neglect that.”
In early 2020, 15-year-old Samuel Gee had a skin check before a wrestling tournament to make sure he didn’t have contagious ringworm. Gee was made aware of something by a referee during the inspection.
“They ask, ‘What’s that?’ I replied, ‘I’m not sure. It’s just a place I’ve had since I was a child,” Gee, a 19-year-old Texas A&M biomedical engineering student, tells TODAY . com. “Well, we’ll let you wrestle this time, but you need to get it checked out,” they said. “”.
Gee discovered that the mole was malignant after seeing a dermatologist. He received a Stage 3 melanoma diagnosis shortly after.
“It definitely caught me off guard,” he says. I was stunned. “.”.
A place to change.
The mark had been on Gee’s back for as long as he could remember, but in the months leading up to the wrestling tournament, it began to take on a new appearance.
“It appeared to be drying out,” he says. “I’ve had the mole since I was a little child, but it progressively got bigger over time. “.”.
He didn’t give it much thought, though. He was battling yet another strange change in his health at the time. A month or so before the tournament, Gee became aware of a swollen lump in his upper right leg.
He says, “I had some serious swelling.”. “I believed it to be an inguinal hernia.”. “.”.
A portion of the intestine that protrudes through the abdomen close to the groin can cause an inguinal hernia, which can resemble a bump, according to the Mayo Clinic. What it was was discovered during a consultation with a pediatric surgeon.
He said, “It’s probably a swollen lymph node, not an inguinal hernia,” Gee remembers. “He says it’s just puberty.”. Return in a few weeks if it hasn’t disappeared. “.”.
Following that, Gee saw a doctor about the mole and had a biopsy, which showed that he had melanoma. He had a swollen lymph node in his leg because it had spread locally. The doctors thought about doing Mohs surgery, which involves removing the cancer with clear margins by cutting away the skin layer by layer, but Gee needed immunotherapy first.
At the same time that the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns started, schools went online. That assisted Gee in controlling a few of the immunotherapy-related side effects.
“I would become a little tired. I’d get queasy from it,” he says. “It was a very routine situation. I would feel great on some days. On some days, I would feel so exhausted or like I needed to throw up. “”.
Gee had surgery in January 2021 to remove the lymph nodes and melanoma. He underwent multiple rounds of immunotherapy after surgery before his treatment was complete.
He claims, “I was free of disease.”. They then declared, “All right, you’re cured.”. ‘”.
Melanoma.
Melanoma primarily affects “older white males,” and according to Dr. Dot Hussein Tawbi, patients with metastatic melanoma are typically in their 60s. However, it does happen to younger people.
The “no. For example, Tawbi, director of personalized cancer therapy in the department of melanoma medical oncology in the division of cancer medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, tells TODAY . com that melanoma is the leading cause of cancer in women aged 30 to 40.
But he adds, “pediatric melanoma is relatively rare.”.
Sun exposure is a common cause of skin cancer, including melanoma. Tawbi advises users to begin wearing sunscreen frequently in their early years because exposure to the sun during adolescence and early adulthood raises the risk of metastatic melanoma in later life.
He claims that there is a clear correlation between sun exposure and an increased risk of melanoma. We do advise individuals to begin wearing sunscreen as soon as possible. “.”.
He also encourages people to get skin checks from a dermatologist on a regular basis.
Tawbi asserts that “early diagnosis is still key.”. Surgery alone is still largely effective in curing melanoma if detected early enough. “”.
To determine whether a skin mark or mole is reason for concern, experts discuss the ABCDEs of skin cancer. A trip to the doctor ought to be prompted by any of these attributes.
Asymmetry is the appearance of a mole that differs on both sides.
B: Border, when the mole’s exterior appears uneven or jagged.
C: Color, which refers to how the mole’s hue changes—becoming white, red, blue, or lighter.
When a mole is bigger than a pencil eraser, it has a diameter of D.
E: Evolution, the process by which a mole adapts or seems different.
Tawbi says 95–99% of early melanomas can be cured by surgery. Immunotherapies frequently increase survival for patients with Stage 3 or Stage 4 melanomas. Melanoma treatment has changed since roughly 2010 thanks to checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, a treatment that boosts the body’s immune system to combat cancer more effectively.
According to Tawbi, “(They’ve) completely changed everything and started resulting for long-term survival for patients.”. In actuality, melanoma survival has increased tenfold. “”.
Gee’s and other metastatic melanomas had a median survival time of seven months prior to checkpoint inhibitors. He continues, “It is now 72 months.”.
“That’s pretty impressive,” he remarks. “Over the past ten years, research has been the only factor that has improved patient survival rates. “.”.
“Sunscreen freak of the highest caliber”.
Prior to receiving a cancer diagnosis, Gee had planned to study computer science or electrical engineering. He is majoring in biomedical engineering as a result of his patient experience and his observation of how technology advances medicine.
“I became interested in biomed engineering after seeing all those amazing machines and wanting to build those,” he says.
He is a “complete sunscreen nerd” now. “..”.
Now he says, “I’m all about the sunscreen.”. “I’m hoping that people will start applying sunscreen.”. Wearing sunscreen and avoiding intentional tanning is the main message I want to convey. “.”.
Additionally, Gee hopes that his story will lessen the sense of loneliness experienced by other young men with melanoma.
“You don’t see that very often. They were taken aback when I first started out. They couldn’t decide which doctor to assign me to. “You simply don’t see it,” he says. It can be stressful, and melanoma in teenage boys is extremely uncommon. “”.
Gee’s early cancer diagnosis gave him fresh perspective on what matters.
He claims, “I’ve got a new perspective on life.”. I believe that many young people overlook the importance of taking care of themselves. “.”.
