Melanoma

[chalknpens]

I recently been biopsied, and melanoma was found. I'm going to have the lesion (can you believe the word comes up in this very different context?) removed on Wednesday.

The biopsy was not painful (three sites, one leg, two opposite shoulders) but I felt faint when they injected the numbing solution at the third site (shin). When they finished and covered the now deflated liquid-filled lesion, I think if I were sitting up for that I might have passed out, but as I was already lying down I just felt really weird for about fifteen minutes. Ice pack on my forehead and behind my neck helped a lot.

Why would that have happened, lying down, and not in any real pain (I love it when they say "this will sting for a minute" ... it's nothing compared to the burning for 20 minutes after Copaxone injections)?

Two of the sites are basal carcinoma (not serious) and only one is melanoma. They'll remove that one first, and schedule me at a later date for the two others.

Of course, I went looking for a connection between MS and Melanoma. The only thing I found was a link between Melanoma and Tysabri and Fingolimod, neither of which I'd ever taken.

I am fair skinned, blue eyed, and lived near the ocean and spent a lot of time at the beach as a child. So I guess it was inevitable (which flies in the face of MS people not having enough sunlight.)

I'm pretty ticked off about this right now. There is nothing rational about having MS and Melanoma ... is there? I've hidden from the sun ever since heat sensitivity set in in my twenties. Really not happy about this. Yes, I know. Melanoma happens in childhood but shows its ugly face much (in my case much much) later. Crummy.

[Scooter24]

Be thankful you don't have to do Chemo and radiation, been there, done that, got the T shirt, Still recovering from that after 3 yrs.

[chalknpens]

Scooter

Hi - sorry you had a rough time (and still are having a rough time) with chemo and radiation.

[SANDRAB]

Melanoma and Tysabri

I was on tysabri for a little over a year when I saw a strange freckle come up on my knee. My PCP sent me to a dematologist and it was melanoma. I had a small surgery to remove the melanoma, thank God no radiation or chemo. I had it done June 15th, just waiting on the huge cut to heal. I thank God it wasn't worse. My neuro told me to quit doing my infusions for awhile. I wonder if there is reason....

[chalknpens]

melanoma and Tysabri

Hi Sandra,
Sorry that your surgical wound is still healing. I will have the most recent set of sutures taken out this Friday. It has been a long path since I was first diagnosed with Melanoma three months ago. I had five cancer sites, requiring eight surgeries, and weeks of healing in between each.

I read something recently connecting Tysabri with an increased likelihood of melanoma. I can't post the url here, but you can search it. That may be why your neurologist suggesting a pause in your infusions - it is a relatively new discovery and perhaps he wants to hear more about it.

Be well. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
Terry

[rdmc]

Terry,

Sorry for your skin cancer problems on top of the MS...I can imagine it must be so hard dealing with both.

Just a quick response to your first post about feeling faint after the anesthesia. Most lidocaine shots have some epinephrine in them, and that can make your heart speed up, and could give you a feeling of faintness.

Hope your recovery continues smoothly.

[Redwings]

I read something recently connecting Tysabri with an increased likelihood of melanoma. I can't post the url here, but you can search it. That may be why your neurologist suggesting a pause in your infusions - it is a relatively new discovery and perhaps he wants to hear more about it.

My purpose in posting here is not to downplay the seriousness of melanoma. All of you who have been affected have my sympathy.

My purpose is to put some perspective on the association between Tysabri and melanoma. It's all too easy for folks to be superficial and selective in interpreting information, so my hope is to get around that and help anyone following this thread to understand the situation in a broader and realistic context.

The news about a possible connection between Tysabri and melanoma broke back in 2008, so it isn't new. There has been some discussion about it in the medical literature, particularly in 2009. And although there have been several case reports in the medical literature about Tysabri patients developing melanoma (and other forms of cancer) -- they can be found with an Internet search -- there hasn't yet been proof that Tysabri actually causes melanoma (or other forms of cancer). In comparison, the risk of lymphoma in patients treated with immunosuppressant drugs is known and established.

Coincidence alone doesn't prove causation. This issue was addressed by an article back in 2009, which apparently hasn't yet been updated. In 2009, the analysis showed that the incidence of melanoma in Tysabri patients was actually lower than in the general population.

The authors of "Melanoma in multiple sclerosis treated with natalizumab: causal association or coincidence?" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20019096) concluded:
"Considering that at the moment the incidence of melanoma is estimable as about 5 per 100,000 multiple sclerosis person-years treated with natalizumab, and that, in the general population, the incidence of melanoma per 100,000 person-years is more than 10, we may speculate that the occurrence of melanoma during natalizumab treatment in multiple sclerosis is purely a coincidence."

Medical decisions can be made only on the information available, but must be made on the totality of the information, not just on suggestion and suspicion. It might be that proof of association between melanoma (or cancer in general) and Tysabri is found in the future. And the development of melanoma absolutely changes how Tysabri must be viewed as a treatment for those patients.

My post isn't about Tysabri after cancer. It's about giving perspective to someone following this thread who might take one thing out of date and out of context, assume that it's true without foundation, and make medical decisions based on incomplete or erroneous information. So I wanted to shed light on the bigger picture, lest someone for whom Tysabri might be an appropriate choice pass it up because of an unfounded belief that "Tysabri causes cancer."