Resources for your patients

Our clinical experts, members and patient representatives have convened to produce the Melanoma Stages and Treatment – Patient Guide to support your patients on all aspects of cutaneous melanoma care including diagnosis, treatment, health and well-being and follow-up.
Additionally, via the rare melanoma guidelines groups, we have generated bespoke resources for patients with rare melanomas.
Dr Miranda Payne, Oxford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust who chaired the MPG project said:

‘Thank you to Melanoma Focus for giving us the opportunity to update these guidelines. It’s been a fantastic collaboration between patients and professionals, all with the shared aim of making a complicated subject as straightforward, accessible and user-friendly as possible.’

Dr Elaine Vickers, a renowned science communicator, has developed four educational videos to explain melanoma, immunotherapies, targeted therapies and T-VEC below. Prior to recording, each video, we obtained feedback from cohorts of melanoma patient representatives.

Dr. Elaine Vickers, Cancer Science Communicator, explains what melanoma is and why you have it, in this patient focused video.

Dr. Elaine Vickers. What is melanoma?

Dr. Elaine Vickers, explains how immunotherapy works for patients, and why it is used in the treatment of melanoma skin cancer.

Dr. Elaine Vickers. Understanding Immunotherapy

Dr. Elaine Vickers, explains how targeted therapies work for patients, and why they are used in the treatment of melanoma skin cancer.

Dr. Elaine Vickers. Understanding Targeted Therapies

Dr. Elaine Vickers, explains how T-VEC works for patients, and its use in the treatment of melanoma skin cancer

Dr. Elaine Vickers. Understanding T-VEC

Adjuvant Therapy

Adjuvant therapy has been explained with the development of informational images to help pictorially explain the potential benefits of adjuvant treatment in 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D disease.

Thank you to Drs Ruth Board and Miranda Payne for leading on shaping this information and all of the patient feedback.

Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy Animations

We have created two animated videos to help explain what a sentinel lymph node biopsy is and what happens on the day.

Understanding Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy

Huge thanks to Ms Jenny Gey and Mr Oliver Bloom from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, Mr Howard Peach from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Finnian Garbutt who provided the voiceover and all of the patients who provided feedback on the animations.

What happens during the Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy

Patient journey support

In partnership with clinicians, nurses and patients we have put together some frequently asked questions (FAQs) and useful tips to help your patients know what to expect during their diagnosis. Patients also fed back about wanting specific expert information on prognosis, living with melanoma and consideration of other aspects of health such as diet and the microbiome, exercise , vitamin D and fertility and we have produced sections on these topics.

We have also collated information for your patients about finance, grants, insurance, and talking to family members about a diagnosis.

 

Rare melanoma guides

Along with the NICE-accredited rare melanoma guidelines and clinical resources, we have produced dedicated information on rare forms of melanoma for patients and carers. This includes specialist patient guides for the different types of mucosal melanoma and uveal melanoma.

young man eating his lunch whilst reading

Melanoma TrialFinder

As well as supporting the medical community with the Melanoma TrialFinder, we have also created a lay version with an additional glossary and information explaining trials, so your patients can search for potential melanoma clinical trials to discuss with their medical teams. These searchable tools are being updated constantly with your help to ensure we have as accurate picture as possible of the trial opportunities in the UK.

Further Information

Many melanoma medical and nursing teams are sharing leaflets on the Melanoma Stages and Treatment – Patient Guide, Melanoma Helpline and Melanoma TrialFinder information within their patient packs to support your patients.

If you would like to order leaflets for your patient packs or to display in a clinic or hospital setting, please email us.

If you have feedback about our resources or suggestions about information that we can, please email us.