Consumer Forums

Audience Clapping ACEMID is regularly engaged with consumers through Community & Consumer Forums.

Community & Consumer forums allow ACEMID researchers to update the public on their research progress and gather information that informs their research directions.

You can read more about each of the ACEMID Consumer & Community forums below.

Consumer Forum 1: Skin cancer photography: consent & protecting your privacy

3D total-body photography for the early detection of melanoma involves photographing the whole body to track spots and moles over time.

At our first ACEMID community forum in March 2022 we held an online discussion with consumers and the community about how concerns regarding privacy of images should be handled.

This discussion was led by Associate Professor Liam Caffery and the team of melanoma researchers at The University of Queensland.

At the forum we presented hypothetical scenarios about how images could potentially be used. For example, 3D images can be used for conducting scientific research, artificial intelligence development, teaching or for a patient’s own clinical care.

In online polls and discussion we asked attendees if they were comfortable to consent to sharing 3D total-body images for various research, teaching and medical scenarios.

You can read the results in the article published in the Australasian Journal of Dermatology here.

Consumer Forum 2: The future of melanoma screening

In November 2022 at our second ACEMID community forum we held an in-person and online discussion with almost 100 consumers and the community about our vision for a targeted melanoma screening program and what new technologies we could incorporate in the future.

The discussion was led by Professor Monika Janda, Professor H. Peter Soyer, Associate Professor Liam Caffery and Ms Montana O’Hara at The University of Queensland. They were also joined by a consumer representative to facilitate the discussions.

The team also shared a progress update on the ACEMID cohort study including recruitment numbers and active sites. The ACEMID study has received over 12,000 expressions of interest to participate across QLD, NSW and VIC. To date, over 2,000 participants had been recruited into the study.

Benefits and harms of screening were discussed. Benefits include reduced severity and morbidity, less invasive treatment, reduced incidence and deaths. Potential barriers include overdiagnosis, overtreatment, false positives, false negatives, the harmful physical and psychological effect of screening tests, and the costs of implementing a nationwide screening program.

The team shared the exciting new technologies they are working on including:

3D total-body imaging
Artificial intelligence
Diagnostic and remote monitoring apps
Less invasive diagnostic techniques such as scarless biopsies (tape stripping) and microbiopsy devices. Microbiopsy devices take only a very small amount of skin tissue (leaving a small puncture site) in the skin that heals in days.
Risk assessment tools (helping us to determine who should be screened and how often).

The forum included an interactive polling session where both online and in-person attendees could respond to the researchers’ questions. Overall, 96% of attendees reported they would participate in a melanoma screening program.

The researchers also asked the attendees hypothetically what would be the main barrier to participating in a melanoma screening program? Some of the top concerns included time off work, costs for treatment and travel costs.