New Qld research helps melanoma treatment

Source: Yahoo News, January 2015

People with aggressive melanomas could be spared the trauma of radiation treatments that wouldn’t work for them anyway thanks to world-first research at a Queensland hospital.

A research team at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane is testing whether patients are resistant to radiation therapy before it is offered to them.

Similar to how drug resistance is tested, individual patients’ melanoma cells are radiated in a petri dish to indicate how they would respond to therapy.

Lead researcher Professor Bryan Burmeister says each melanoma patient reacted differently to treatment and it was important to establish the best course of action as early as possible.

“I’ve been working with melanomas now for 25 years and it still amazes me how, in some patients, the disease melts away and in others it just laughs at you and kills the patient within a few weeks or months," Prof Burmeister said.

The new research, which is still in its early stages, will mean patients resistant to radiation therapy will be spared unnecessary toxicity by undergoing the treatment.