Outrun The Sun!! Help in the fight against melanoma!

Skin cancer in general is the commonest cancer diagnosed and treated in the United States with over 2,000,000 people affected annually.  While there are many types of skin cancer and all have potential to be life threatening, melanoma is the most aggressive and biggest killer.  Currently despite detection and treatment options about 1 person dies per hour from #melanoma.

Help Find a Cure for Melanoma

Some scary statistics:
     -  An estimated 76,000+ people will be diagnosed with melanoma in 2013
     -  86% of melanoma can be attributed to UV exposure
     -  A person's risk for melanoma doubles if they experience more than 5 sunburns
     -  Melanoma accounts for <5% of skin cancers but accounts for most of the death

     

In my daily practice there is rarely a day that goes by where I do not diagnose a case of melanoma. While survival has improved over the years with more aggressive surgical interventions and early detection, there are still many individuals who develop life threatening disease.  New medications are being developed that target specific aspects of the disease and the FDA recently approved two new agents for metastatic melanoma (dabrafenib and trametinib).  We live in an age where science is rapidly accumulating answers to complex questions about previously poorly understood diseases, but this process requires research and research means money.

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In Rochester, NY we are proud to be sponsoring Rochester Melanoma Action Group's 2nd Annual - Out Run the Sun Race Against Melanoma and Sunset Festival.  We aim to make this event bigger and better every year and hope you can join us for the fun 5k run or 1 mile walk, even if it is to simply hang out and cheer on your friends or family.  Check it out and please tell your friends so that we can all help raise awareness and fight melanoma head-on!

Date: August 2nd
Location:  Webster Park (Rochester, NY/Webster, NY)
Time:  Sunset festival begins 5pm
           5k race begins 7pm
Visit the website:  Help Find a Cure for Melanoma

Data and statistics posted are from the Skin Cancer Foundation - skincancer.org.  Visit for complete references.