The quest to diagnose melanoma early has been a holy grail in skin cancer medicine.
In Australia, with up to 2,000 people dying from melanoma each year and one diagnosed every 30 minutes, the news of a blood test that can detect early stages of the cancer is like finding a canary in the coal mine.
The blood test to diagnose melanoma was foreshadowed in 2018. “The world’s first blood test able to detect early stage melanoma has been developed by Edith Cowan University researchers”.Then it went into a silence. The progress on the diagnosis blood test for melanoma resurfaced from the U.S.
Doctors are now able to test for melanoma using brand new blood testing methods that use melanoma-specific antibodies. This can not only detect the disease if it is present but also tell whether or not subsequent treatments have been successful.
Researchers from the University of Michigan said this is the first study using circulating tumour cells (CTCs) to evaluate the efficacy of surgery.
“CTCs have the potential to pinpoint treatment resistance and recurrence, and can be a valuable biomarker to non-invasively monitor for disease progression,” said research author Sunitha Nagrath.
For this blood test to become a routine diagnostic test offered by the local pathology service, it does appear that there is a significant delay. However, researchers have identified a reliable biomarker to run tests to see whether one has a melanoma or not.
Akin to Prostate Specific Antigen for prostate cancer, the Melanoma-specific antibiotics can be used to monitor whether there was a completely clearance form melanoma and I presume also to detect any early recurrences.
Watch this space.
Dr Peter Kim
Eastwood Skin Cancer Clinic
