My news feed lit up today with a bunch of links talking about research done by a German and Israeli team showing how skin cancer cells develop and spread. This important research will hopefully show how skin cancer cells spread throughout the body. As you already know, melanoma is one of the deadliest types of cancer once it has spread since it likes to go to the brain, lungs, and liver most often.
If researchers can understand the mechanism of how melanoma grows, then they might be able to develop therapies that can target the melanoma in its growth stage – before it even has a chance to move to other areas of the body.
I’m going to quote directly from the article I linked to since I don’t want to lose the nuance:
Lead researcher Dr. Carmit Levy, of the human molecular genetics and biochemistry department at TAU’s Sackler School of Medicine, said before spreading to other organs, tumors send out tiny vesicles containing microRNA that prepare the skin to receive and transport the cancer cells
Knowing this information, researchers can use chemicals that stop those vesicles; basically creating drugs that can be used to halt the spread of melanoma so it’s easily treated and maybe even considered “cured”.
It’s an exciting breakthrough. Yes, I’m aware that it may take years or even decades to get to the point where we have a drug to cure melanoma; but a step in the right direction to halting the progression of a disease that has been on a dramatic increase over the past 30 years.