A group of Australian researchers have developed a blood test that can accurately detect melanoma with 79 percent accuracy in its earliest stages. Results of their study were published on July 17 in Onocotarget.
“Detecting the primary melanoma tumors at an early stage results in a five-year survival rate as high as 99 percent, whereas five-year survival for late stage patients is only 15-20 percent indicating the importance of the timely diagnosis of this malignancy,” wrote first author Pauline Zaenker, MSc, of Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Australia, and colleagues.
The researchers argued traditional screening methods—including visual examination of suspicious lesions using dermoscopy, reflectance confocal microscopy, total body photography and teledermatology—all have limitations and may not be as effective in diagnosing individuals who have substantial amounts of moles on their bodies or a family history of melanomas.
Zaenker and colleagues conducted a trial with 209 people 105 individuals with melanoma and 104 without melanoma and collected blood for testing. They examined more than 1,600 function proteins, or autoantibodies (AAbs) and continued to cut them down to 10 that could best indicate melanoma.
Post the initial trial, which was able to detect melanoma with 79 percent accuracy, the researchers will now conduct additional trials over the next three years to improve accuracy rates to 90 percent.
And while the new blood test will make advancements in the screening of melanomas, it also answers public health and healthcare cost problems for Australia, where they have some of the highest rates of melanoma in the world.
“Previous data has shown that only 5 percent of the total health care costs associated with melanoma are spent on the management of early melanoma disease including the costs of primary tumor diagnosis and excision, while the remaining 95 percent of all melanoma related health care costs are spent on the treatment and management of advanced melanoma estimated to amount to $201 million annually in Australia,” Zaenker et al. wrote. “Therefore, early detection and treatment could not only drastically improve patient five-year survival rates to 99 percent but also lower the financial burden of the disease on the health care system.”
As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.