FEATURE STORY
BY THE NUMBERS • It is expected that 16,800 Australians will be diagnosed with melanoma this year. • One Australian is diagnosed with melanoma every 30 minutes. • It is estimated 1300 Australians will die from melanoma this year. • One Australian dies from melanoma every six hours. • Melanoma is the third most common cancer in Australia. • Melanoma is the most common cancer for Australians aged 20 to 39. • Melanoma is the second-most common cancer in Australian men, after prostate cancer.
Big crowds turned up for the Sunshine Coast Melanoma March earlier this month
Making sense of melanoma Melanoma is a deadly disease that disproportionately affects Australians. But organisations such as the Melanoma Institute Australia are working hard to treat the disease, educate the community and fund research so no one will die from it in the future. WORDS: Ingrid Nelson.
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e live in a country with the highest melanoma rates in the world. One Australian is diagnosed with the deadly form of skin cancer every 30 minutes and 1300 Aussies will die each year from it. Melanoma is particularly dangerous because it develops in the skin’s pigment cells, known as melanocytes, and can spread via the blood and lymphatic system to organs like the lungs, liver and brain. The good news is, if caught early, 90 per cent of melanomas can be cured by surgery and with new advances in treatment and technology, the five-year overall survival rate for advanced melanoma has increased from less than 10 per cent to greater than 50 per cent in the last decade. According to the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), in 2011, melanoma was Australia’s seventh most deadly cancer. In 2021, melanoma was Australia’s eleventh most deadly cancer. Recent advances in treatment pioneered by MIA clinicians and researchers have tripled the life expectancy for advanced melanoma patients, proving the research is working. In fact, MIA’s ultimate goal is zero deaths from melanoma by the end of the decade. It is a goal MIA CEO Matthew Browne says is well within reach, thanks to major annual fundraising campaigns such as Melanoma March, which brings together
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“Research is where we need to be to solve this disease” MIA CEO Matthew Browne melanoma patients, their families and communities to raise awareness and funds for research. “The event started 11 years ago in Manly as a simple march to walk in unison as a community to raise awareness and ultimately fundraise for a national research project that would benefit all of us,” Mr Browne says. “It built from there to the point where this year we have 17 marches across Australia and prior to COVID we
had 24. All of the money raised goes to MIA for research. “We are delighted we are able to return to physical events this year and we will build it back up again over the next few years. We have had a big response, which suggests people are very supportive of the work MIA does. They realise research is ultimately where we need to be to solve this disease.” This year, Melanoma March is aiming to raise $1 million for a world-first clinical trial of a Personalised Immunotherapy Platform, which could transform cancer treatment across the globe and ultimately save many thousands of lives. Currently, 50 per cent of advanced melanoma patients don’t respond to or develop resistance to the immunotherapy treatment. The clinical trial is to test a Personalised Immunotherapy Platform designed to ensure these patients get effective treatment the first time, based on their own genetics and tumour biology. “Immunotherapy is a combination of therapies and drugs that support and promote the body’s own immune system to fight the disease,” Mr Browne says. “It trains the immune system to fight the disease with a longer-term solution. “Advanced melanomas that spread throughout the body would have been a death sentence 10 years ago. Patients might have been given six months to live
• Melanoma is the third-most common cancer in Australian women, after breast and colorectal cancer. • 95 per cent of melanomas are caused by overexposure to UV radiation from the sun. • If caught early, 90 per cent of melanomas can be cured by surgery. Source: aihw.gov.au
and a small percentage survived a year. These days, 50 per cent of people with advanced melanoma are disease free. It all starts with clinical trials and we are at the forefront of that. Ultimately these treatments such as immunotherapy are eventually approved and broadly accessible to the general public.” Just last month, with Melanoma Patients Australia, MIA launched a landmark report calling on governments to urgently provide increased action and funding to tackle the alarming incidence of melanoma in Australia. The report provides a road map to zero deaths from melanoma, including national melanoma prevention and awareness programs, better sun safety in high schools and sport, and targeted national melanoma screening program “In that report it estimated 18,000 people will die within five years of diagnosis by 2030 if we don’t do anything further. Our goal is to reduce that number substantially,” Mr Browne says. To find out more about Melanoma March or how you can help raise awareness visit melanomamarch.org.au
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