Media Releases

Melanoma season is coming – so are better treatments for it

Better drug combinations to treat late-stage melanoma are on their way thanks to research published today by Centenary Institute scientists in Sydney.

Monday 19 December 2011

As we head into another Australian summer, many are now aware of the very real risk of skin cancer that comes with it. Prevention is working, but we need to get better at treating melanoma.

Melanoma affects some 10,000 Australians every year. Nowadays, because of better prevention, many of these cancers are caught early and cut out before they metastasise or spread.

Dr Nikolas Haass But some get through the net. And it is these late-stage melanomas, which kill about 1430 Australians each year, that Centenary researchers are targeting. Metastasising cancers are typically difficult to treat.

Earlier this year, two new anti-melanoma drugs were approved in the US, but tumours build up resistance to them after a few months, allowing the cancer to come back. Dr Nikolas Haass, PhD student NethiaMohana-Kumaran and their colleagues at the Centenary Institute thought that using combinations of another group of drugs could offer a way forward.

This second group of potential drugs encourages cancer cells to kill themselves. This works fine for some leukaemias but melanomas and many other common cancers are resistant. The Centenary scientists have been exploring how to make this approach work in melanoma.

In today’s publication in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the researchers showed – in the test-tube - that when they stimulated certain parts of the cancer cells’ suicide mechanism prior to treatment with this second group of drugs melanoma lose their resistance and become 100 times more sensitive to the drug. When they followed this up with trials with mice, however, they found the new drugs were not soluble enough to penetrate deep into the tumour and destroy all the cells.

So Dr Haass and the team are now investigating ways to get around this by trying a different similar drug combination that is potentially better at penetrating the tumour. There are no quick solutions in melanoma research, but if everything goes well this approach could extend the usefulness of the new drugs to a much wider range of cancers, including melanoma and other hard cases.

“This shows fundamental research can provide clues to treating a cancer that is known to so many Australians,” says Centenary Institute Executive Director Professor Mathew Vadas.

Australia’s new Health Minister Tanya Plibersek met with Dr Haass and discussed his research during her visit to Centenary Institute on Wednesday, ahead of her swearing in by the Governor General.

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For interviews contact: Dr Nikolas Haass +61 2 9565 6245

For paper and full release go to: http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/centenary or call Andrew Wight on +61 3 9398 1416.

Melanoma Cells (Photo above).

The images show in-vitro 3D melanoma cells untreated (A) and treated with a new drug (B). The untreated tumour (A) has grown larger, more of its cells have spread (the green dots outside the tumour) and its cells are in better condition (brighter green). The treated tumour (B) has not grown, fewer cells have spread (or invaded) and the cells are not as bright.