Blood Test Could Help Predict Skin Cancer's Return

Source: EurekAlert, December 2017

Cancer Research UK scientists have discovered that testing skin cancer patients’ blood for tumour DNA could help predict the chances of an aggressive cancer returning.
Published in the Annals of Oncology* today (Wednesday), the findings could pave the way to identifying patients who are most at risk of their disease returning, and who might benefit from new immunotherapy treatments.
Led by researchers based at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust**, scientists studied blood samples taken after surgery from 161 patients*** with stage 2 and 3 melanoma. They then looked for faults in two genes that are linked to 70% of melanoma skin cancers – BRAF and NRAS.