Parma, May 11, 2026 - The University of Parma also took part in Melanoma Day in recent days at the Chamber of Deputies. Ignazio Stanganelli, professor of Skin and Venereal Diseases in the Department of Medicine and Surgery and Director of the Specialization School in Dermatology, in fact presented updates on the innovative telemedicine programs dedicated to health care workers and schools, developed as part of the national projects of the Italian Melanoma Intergroup (IMI) and, more recently, the ENGIM Emilia-Romagna Foundation.
The conference, promoted by Social Affairs Commission Vice-President Luciano Ciocchetti and developed by Gianluca Pistore, President of the MelanomaDay Association, was attended by members of the Social Affairs and Health Committees of the House and Senate, representatives of the main scientific societies, clinicians and clinicians, researchers, hospital and university realities, patient associations and civil society representatives. During the meeting IMI, ADOI, SIDeMaST and AIOM presented specific operational proposals to strengthen the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of melanoma in Italy. An appointment of particularly significant value, just a few days after the final grade in Montecitorio on the bill to establish the National Day for the Prevention of Melanoma, already approved by the Senate.
Prof. Stanganelli, Director of the Skin Cancer Unit at IRCCS IRST, illustrated the results obtained with telemedicine applied to e-learning through the MelaMEd (Melanoma Multimedia Education) platform, dedicated to the training of physicians and general practitioners, and with the activation of the ELTEL (E-learning and Telemedicine) experimental project, aimed at the integration of territorial medicine and hospital. The advancements of the SUNTEL (SUN & TELematic Learning) project, which involves nearly thirty secondary schools nationwide, including the School for Europe in Parma, with the support of the dermatological societies ADOI and SIDeMaST, were presented. The launch of the unique SUNTEL KIDS pilot program, dedicated to elementary school and with Convitto Maria Luigia di Parma as the pathfinder institution, was also illustrated.
SUNTEL represents the first international program of integration between peer education and teleducation for the prevention of skin cancer in the school setting, through two innovative e-learning platforms born from the collaboration between IMI and the Ministry of Education and Merit: Sunshine for Friend for KIDS, aimed at elementary school girls and boys, and Sunshine for Friend for YOUNG, dedicated to female and male secondary school students. The platforms transform girls and boys into prevention protagonists and peer health promoters, following the peer education model.
Finally, the multimedia and multispecialty project Good Health Good Work was presented, developed with the ENGIM Emilia-Romagna Foundation and with the collaboration of Massimo Corradi, professor of Occupational Medicine at the University of Parma and Director of the Specialization School in Occupational Medicine. The project is dedicated to the health education of male and female workers, with an initial focus on the risk related to occupational exposure to ultraviolet rays in those who work outdoors, a factor recognized as one of the main causes of malignant skin tumors in numerous occupational categories, involving about 10 million male and female workers in Europe and more than 700 thousand in Italy.
