Melanoma Treatment Found; 8 Facts About Skin Cancer & Symptoms

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Patient- specific or personalized vaccines for individuals with melanoma could help provoke immune response against tumour mutations, say a study by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, according to Medical News Today.

In the research, a patient's tumor cell genome, as well as healthy cell genome, is sequenced to detect the mutated proteins called neoantigens.

Beatriz Carreno, associate professor of medicine and lead author of the study explains, "You can think of a neoantigen as a flag on each cancer cell, each patient's melanoma can have hundreds of different flags. As part of validating candidate vaccine neoantigens, we were able to identify the flags on the patients' cancer cells. Then we created customized vaccines to a select group of flags on each patient's tumor."

Six patients were involved in the phase 1 trial of the vaccine trial, which has been approved by the FDA. The vaccines are expected to trigger immune response against the cancer cells, leaving the healthy cells intact in order to prevent the recurrence of the disease.

In another study conducted by Robert Andtbacka, an associate professor of surgery in Huntsman Cancer Institute, a specialized virus is injected under the skin exactly at the cancer site of the patient in order to trigger immune response. As a result of the immune response, cancer cells are also killed along with the virus, without any harmful side effects, according to The Daily Utah Chronicle.

"The only side effects we see are discomfort at the injection site, like redness," said Andtbacka. "Sometimes there are shakes and chills like with flu shots."

Having discussed about treatments for melanoma, it is important to know more about the disease. Melanoma is one of the three main types of skin cancer, the other two being basal cell skin cancer and squamous cell skin cancer.

Here are 8 facts and symptoms about skin cancer.

Skin Cancer Facts

1. Skin cancer is developed primarily on the skin surface exposed to sun, and in rare cases they are also observed in palms, genital area and beneath fingernails or toenails, says Mayo Clinic.

2. Almost 5 million people seek treatment for skin cancer every year, in the United States alone, according to SkinCancer.org.

3. SkinCancer.org reveals that, "One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime."

4. "More than 419,000 cases of skin cancer in the US each year are linked to indoor tanning, including about 245,000 basal cell carcinomas, 168,000 squamous cell carcinomas, and 6,200 melanomas," SkinCancer.org adds.

Skin Cancer Symptoms

According to Cancer.org, a skin exam, regularly done by a physician or by yourself, can help detect skin cancer. In a separate entry, Cancer.org details what you should look for when examining your skin:

1. "Basal cell carcinomas can appear in a number of different ways:
- Flat, firm, pale or yellow areas, similar to a scar

- Raised reddish patches that might be itchy

- Small, pink or red, translucent, shiny, pearly bumps, which might have blue, brown, or black areas

- Pink growths with raised edges and a lower area in their center, which might contain abnormal blood vessels

- Open sores (which may have oozing or crusted areas) that don't heal, or that heal and then come back 

2. "Squamous cell carcinomas can appear as:

- Rough or scaly red patches, which might crust or bleed

- Raised growths or lumps, sometimes with a lower area in the center

- Open sores (which may have oozing or crusted areas) that don't heal, or that heal and then come back

- Wart-like growths 

3. "Actinic keratosis, also known as solar keratosis, is a skin condition that can sometimes progress to squamous cell cancer (although most of them do not)."

4. Cancer.org says that a new spot on the skin is "the most important warning sign of melanoma." The organization recommends reporting the skin spot to your doctor if they exhibit the below features:

- Asymmetry: One half of a mole or birthmark does not match the other.

- Border: The edges are irregular, ragged, notched, or blurred.

- Color: The color is not the same all over and may include shades of brown or black, or sometimes with patches of pink, red, white, or blue.

- Diameter: The spot is larger than 6 millimeters across (about ¼ inch - the size of a pencil eraser), although melanomas can sometimes be smaller than this.

- Evolving: The mole is changing in size, shape, or color.