Confronting a melanoma diagnosis as a pathologist and patient

“I had a little pea-sized bump on the top of my head. My dermatologist didn't think there was much to it. But the biopsy came back and the diagnosis was malignant melanoma,” he says of the 2015 discovery of this potentially lethal type of skin cancer.

A pathologist for more than 40 years, Tom founded Ventana Medical Systems in 1985 in Tucson, Arizona. Acquired by Roche in 2008, the company develops and manufactures automated diagnostic instruments and cancer tests that provide medical insights, touching the lives of more than 26 million patients globally each year - including those affected by skin cancers.

“I was surprised because I felt perfectly fine,” says Tom, who looked at his own cells under a microscope and knew how deadly his cancer could be.

Tom was among the first melanoma patients to be accepted into a ground-breaking cancer immunotherapy trial. He traveled to Los Angeles every three weeks for his immunotherapy infusions, with the hope that his immune system would kick in to attack the cancer.

A year later, Tom was declared cancer free.

Because the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes, however, there was an 80 percent chance that it would come back, according to a table that predicts these things. “It turns out the table is quite accurate,” Tom said. “It came back six years, 35 days and 12 hours later.”

As he battled this disease for a second time, Tom experienced an unexpected sense of elation during immunotherapy infusions.

Tom completed his treatment successfully, and is now monitored regularly, He greets each day with optimism and gratitude.

References

1. (Accessed Sept 2022)