Since her diagnosis in February 2019, Dayanara has courageously and openly shared her experience with millions of fans and social media followers, offering an intimate and honest portrait of the physical and emotional challenges that can accompany melanoma diagnosis, treatment and recovery. When we reached out to her to ask for support of our 2019 This is Brave campaign, she didn’t hesitate. Even though it was early in her treatment, she was ready to share and help raise awareness.

She finished her treatments at The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute in February 2020 with her incredible family by her side…all wearing their "This is Brave" shirts.

While we were all celebrating her incredible milestone, she was already busy looking for ways to continue helping the Melanoma community. In 2020 she joined the Melanoma Research Foundation's #GetNaked campaign.

She shared her partnership in both English and Spanish on October 1, 2020, the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month:

“Today I’m proud to join the Melanoma Research Foundation’s #GetNaked melanoma awareness campaign! As a stage 3 metastatic melanoma survivor myself, it’s incredibly important to me that everyone understands how serious this cancer is and that a monthly full-body skin check could save your life. Melanoma does not discriminate – people of every age, race and gender are at risk.”

Dayanara urged her followers to join her in sharing this life-saving advice to their own friends and loved ones.

Dayanara took This is Brave international when she participated in a telethon to support the Oncology Hospital of Puerto Rico! We are beyond grateful and in awe of all she’s done for the cancer community.

“We have long admired Dayanara’s commitment to increase awareness among millions of people in communities across the world that may believe they are not at risk,” said MRF CEO Kyleigh LiPira. “Sharing her story through the #GetNaked campaign will help to dispel the dangerous myth that melanoma only affects older people or those with fair skin, while in truth it does not discriminate by age, race or gender – everyone is at risk.”

In the nearly two years since Dayanara announced her diagnosis, dermatologists have reported a significant increase in skin exams among Hispanic patients. Many new patients cited her story as their motivation to make an appointment, a public health phenomenon that has since been named “the Dayanara Effect.”

“As part of the MRF’s #GetNaked campaign I hope to continue to create awareness about the importance of regularly checking your skin and yearly visiting a dermatologist for a full-body exam. While melanoma can affect anybody, early detection is the key to saving lives. I had misconceptions about skin cancer and one of my missions is for every single person to know the risks and how to detect it early-on,” Dayanara expressed.

We are forever grateful for all Dayanara has done, and will do to help protect and prevent. Thank you Dayanara! <3

Story source: https://melanoma.org/news-press/the-melanoma-research-foundation-and-dayanara-torres-want-you-to-getnaked/