Advanced Skin Cancer Care Team: Specialists and Coordination

How Your Care Team Collaborates: The Tumor Board

Multidisciplinary tumor boards have become the gold standard for cancer care.

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A tumor board is essentially a scheduled meeting where medical professionals gather to discuss patient cases. The participating doctors represent a range of specialties, and they come together to evaluate the patient’s medical condition and determine the best overall treatment options.

This approach can improve diagnostic accuracy and helps ensure that patients receive comprehensive care based on established guidelines.

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“Each person contributes to a different piece of the puzzle, and that collaboration is particularly important when a cancer has spread beyond the skin or requires multiple types of treatment,” says Dr. Skelsey.

How a Tumor Board Works

Tumor board meetings can vary, but they all follow the same basic protocol. During a typical meeting, several cases are evaluated.

A member of a patient’s care team presents a short medical history, including current health status and any earlier treatments. The pathologist and radiologist show images used to reach the diagnosis, staging, and outlook. All this information is then reviewed by the tumor board.

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“Each specialist provides insights based on their expertise, and we discuss the available treatment options, incorporating current medical evidence and clinical guidelines,” says Dr. Braghiroli.

For example, she says, “In a patient with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma, we may discuss whether surgery is the best first step, which type of surgery, whether radiation therapy would be beneficial, or whether immunotherapy should be considered.”

The discussion can sometimes point to a treatment strategy that would not have been as apparent from the perspective of a single specialty.

Patients do not participate in these meetings. The recommendations are not binding in any way — you and your doctor make the final decision on a treatment plan.

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“A multidisciplinary tumor board is a quick way to ensure multiple ‘second opinions’ within a team of physicians who are focused on reaching consensus about the best treatment approach,” says Dr. Bennett.

It’s important to note that not every case needs to be presented before a tumor board. Many situations are straightforward, with clear guidelines that can be applied. “Programs give priority to new diagnoses, complex or unusual cases, disagreements between specialists, cancers that have come back, and cases where a trial might apply,” Bennett says.