Protecting against skin cancer
Stage 4 melanoma survivor knows importance of early detection and treatment
Mark Zindler was never concerned about sunburns when he was younger. To the Houston native, they were just an unfortunate byproduct of an afternoon at the beach or on the golf course.
Zindler, 68, knew that too much exposure to the sun could cause skin cancer. He just didn’t spend much time worrying about it.
“If you went out to get a tan, you put baby oil on yourself,” Zindler said. “It was one of those things where you just never thought about it.”
Everything changed in 2012, when Zindler noticed something that looked like a scar near the top of his forehead. A biopsy confirmed it was melanoma, a dangerous type of skin cancer that can grow quickly and spread to other organs. Seven years later he was also diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma and needed treatment for tumors that developed in his heart and right lung.
Zindler, who lives in Clear Lake, is tumor-free after undergoing treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center. It will be another three years until he’s officially declared cancer-free. Today, he says his cavalier attitude toward sun exposure should serve as a cautionary tale.
“It wasn’t a ‘why me’ situation. It was more like ‘why not me?’ ” he said. “I’m not exempt from getting some type of disease like that.”
Zindler shared his story for Skin Cancer Awareness Month, a national effort to educate the public about the risks of skin cancer and the best ways to protect against it.
The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that 1 out of every 5 Americans will be diagnosed with a form of skin cancer by the age of 70. More than 5 million cases are diagnosed in the U.S. annually, which is more than every other type of cancer combined.
“Everybody in the world probably knows somebody who’s had skin cancer,” said Dr. Ida Orengo, professor and medical director of the dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine. “It’s very common.”
Dermatologists said it’s particularly important to identify skin cancer early because it can be effectively treated if it’s detected before it has a chance to spread.
Zindler, son of KTRK-TV’s famous newsman Marvin Zindler, first developed skin cancer in 1997. Doctors found a squamous cell carcinoma, a relatively common form of skin cancer caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet radiation. But it was small and easy to remove, so it didn’t cause him to change his behavior at the time.
Zindler was living in Tyler, working as an account executive at a TV station, in 2012 when he noticed what turned out to be the melanoma. He was getting another squamous cell carcinoma removed at the time, so he asked his dermatologist to check it out. It didn’t appear serious, so they decided to reassess it when he returned three months later to get stitches removed.
By then, the scar had turned a “funky-looking black and green,” Zindler said. His doctor took a biopsy and called him the next afternoon with the bad news.
“I was pretty blown away,” Zindler said.
If melanoma is detected and treated before it has a chance to spread to other parts of the body, the five-year survival rate is approximately 99 percent, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. That’s why it’s crucial to be proactive and see a dermatologist if you see something that might be cancerous, said Dr. Susan Chon, a professor of dermatology at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“If they come in early, it’s even easier for us to help them,” Chon said. “We just need them to take the first step and come see a doctor.”
Zindler had surgery to remove 2 inches of skin on his scalp days after he was diagnosed with melanoma. His doctors were split on whether he needed additional treatment, so he called MD Anderson, where he underwent radiation therapy.
The treatment was effective, and Zindler was declared cancer-free by 2017. However, in 2019, he was given another shock. Tests from one of his annual checkups showed Zindler had stage 4 metastatic melanoma. He had one tumor in the left ventricle of his heart and two more in his right lung.
“I was just devastated over that,” he said. “That was the most surreal moment, I think.”
Doctors came up with a plan to treat Zindler with a drug called nivolumab. He needed two years of intravenous therapy, so he and his wife moved to Clear Lake to be closer to MD Anderson.
The treatment has been effective, and Zindler is now free of tumors. He considers himself one of the “lucky ones,” because the five-year survival rate for melanoma that spreads to distant parts of the body is roughly 30 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
Looking back, Zindler wishes he’d listened to the co-workers who would scold him when he showed up to work with a nasty sunburn. He regrets that he didn’t take basic precautions to protect himself, like wearing sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses.
Before his first melanoma diagnosis, Zindler felt like he could skip some corners because he’d been seeing a dermatologist every three months for the previous decade. He never missed a single appointment. Now he knows that anyone could be susceptible if they’re not careful.
“I’ll put it this way: I haven’t had a bad sunburn since all this happened,” Zindler said. “The sun’s a good thing, but too much of it is not a good thing.”