Dermatology Times July 2026 Print Recap

The July digital issue of Dermatology Times includes a collection of thought-provoking articles and topics as we tackle sun safety from every angle that patients and clinicians need this summer; from the new approval for bemotrizinol and guidance on melasma care to persistent tanning trends and the rise of gluteal melanoma rates.

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Sunscreen’s New Blind Spot: Fashion Trends, Tanning Myths, and the Rise of Gluteal Melanomas

Kelly English was in her mid-40s, working as an outdoor adventure guide, when a new exercise routine inadvertently may have saved her life. Having just started CrossFit in the summer of 2024, she noticed an irritated mole on her lower back and, while examining it, spotted something else: a lesion positioned in a part of the body most people never inspect.

“Just from looking at it, my dermatologist immediately said this was for sure melanoma,” English said in a conversation with Dermatology Times. A biopsy confirmed stage I superficial spreading melanoma. The location: the center of her buttocks.

For board-certified dermatologist Whitney Hovenic, MD, the case was not surprising—it was illustrative. English, a close childhood friend of Hovenic’s, had endured not only the diagnosis but a surgical recovery complicated by wound reopening, daily wound packing, and weeks of debilitating pain in one of the body’s highest-movement anatomic zones. The experience prompted Hovenic to think about the thousands of people who come to her attention at the beach, where she observes something clinicians increasingly need to consider: significant sunburns in places rarely discussed in sun protection counseling.

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Evidence-Based Best Practices for Melasma Care

A clinician can look at a case of melasma and see something cosmetically minor. The patient living with it often sees something else entirely. That disconnect is at the heart of why melasma remains one of dermatology's most frustrating conditions to manage—and why, for July's Hyperpigmentation and Melasma Awareness Month, Dermatology Times sat down with Skin of Color Society member Jane Yoo, MD, MPP, FAAD, to talk through what effective, equitable care actually looks like. "The burden is real and frequently underestimated by clinicians who see a cosmetically mild presentation and miss a profoundly affected patient underneath it," Yoo said.

Melasma is stubborn and recurrent and disproportionately affects patients with skin of color—the same patients for whom an aggressive intervention can backfire into postinflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) or paradoxical darkening. Yoo's answers walk that tightrope: how she gets patients to actually wear tinted sunscreen, when she cycles off hydroquinone, how she risk-stratifies candidacy for lasers and peels, where she lands on oral vs topical tranexamic acid (TXA), and why the upstream targets generating buzz are not yet ready for the examination room.

Read more from Jane Yoo, MD, MPP, FAAD

Once-Daily Zasocitinib Rivals Injectable Biologics for Skin Clearance, Phase 3 Data Show

Complete skin clearance from a once-daily pill—achieved in more than one-third of patients. That was the headline finding from LATITUDE Atlas, a phase 3, randomized, double-blind trial in which zasocitinib (TAK-279; Takeda) demonstrated statistical superiority over deucravacitinib (Sotyktu; Bristol Myers Squibb) across all primary and key secondary end points in adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, reinforcing the case that next-generation tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitors are rewriting expectations for oral therapy.

In the LATITUDE Atlas trial (NCT06973291), 606 participants were randomly assigned to zasocitinib 30 mg once daily or deucravacitinib 6 mg once daily for 16 weeks. The primary end point—psoriasis area and severity index 100% improvement (PASI 100) response rate at week 16—was met with statistical significance in favor of zasocitinib. More than 35% of zasocitinib-treated patients achieved complete skin clearance at that time point compared with approximately 14% in the deucravacitinib arm, a more than 2.5-fold difference. Separation between treatment curves emerged as early as week 8.

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Diagnosing Without a Safety Net

Did you hear about the dermatologist who did an emergency tracheostomy on an airplane? What would have been really impressive is an emergency department doctor doing a punch biopsy at 30,000 feet. Jokes aside, certain procedures and diagnostic tools, as simple as they are to perform, can be surprisingly inaccessible to some patient populations.

“Insert Superlative Adjective Here” Dermatology in Suburbanville, America, will have a plethora of diagnostic tools available. But what about an inner-city urgent care clinic? Or a rural office that takes a month for biopsy results turnaround and has a high percentage of patients lost to follow-up? Or a mobile practice that can't fit a microscope into their suitcases? The list goes on: a patient who cannot undergo a biopsy because they are too anxious, are older, or have an intellectual disability or a patient who only reaches out via telemedicine and can't get an appointment with the dermatologist's office for 4 months. These are all very real scenarios that each present diagnostic challenges.

Read more from Rivkah Epstein, PA-C

Click here to view all articles in the interactive July issue.