Skin cancer accounts for about 80% of all newly diagnosed cancers.
The good news is though that when detected early, the five-year survival rate for melanoma is 99%, so improving early detection rates is vital to prevent deaths from skin cancer.
Skin Cancer Support
A new technique to target advanced solid cancers like metastatic melanoma is set to become available in Australia, a potential game-changer that could be lifesaving for people with cancer.
Researchers from the Western Australia Melanoma Initiative (WAMI) are hoping to establish immunotherapy manufacturing in Western Australia, to ensure this new therapy is available for Australian patients.
Primary brain melanomas are rare, extremely aggressive tumours that do not respond to current treatments. As they are so rare, there is little information on them or opportunity to study them.
Dr Yu Yu from Curtin University aims to improve understanding of this melanoma through a cutting-edge technique that will allow the team to look at many tumour growth molecules in this patient’s tumour, to find out which were responsible for the aggressive behaviour of her cancer.
Free pop-up skin cancer clinics are being held across regional South Australia to improve access to skin checks for high-risk groups.
People living in regional areas have a 15-31% higher rate of skin cancer, and 80% of melanomas occur in over 50s. This project uses specially trained nurses and AI technology to improve detection.
