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Cancer is one of the biggest health challenges that clinicians and society face, although some cancers are significantly more dangerous than others.  As far as cancers go, malignant melanoma is one of the most aggressive.  Melanoma rates have risen faster than any other cancer in the last thirty years.

If it's caught early, when it's still a visible tumour on the skin, melanoma can be excised completely.  Once cells have spread from the original tumour to other parts of the body, the outlook is poor; there's no effective treatment and mortality usually occurs within months.

That's why news from the American Society of Clinical Oncology about a trial of a new treatment, Ipilimumab, for malignant melanoma is exciting.

Ipilimumab is a new class of drug therapy that works be enabling the patient's own body to destroy the cancer cells.  The drug activates the immune system's "T cells" (groups of white blood cells that play an essential role in the bodies' immune system), which then seek and destroy melanoma cells.

With the trial conducted to the highest scientific standard (randomised, double-blind trials) on several hundred people, the results demonstrated an average life extension of three and a half months.  ALmost a quarter of the patients survived two years after treatment (which is a marked improvement in survival with advanced melanoma).

As the treatment is still some way from being readily available the best way to prevent melanoma is still to take care in the sun - wear protective clothing and a high-factor sun block - and get checked quickly if a mole or lesion is a concern; bleeding, itching or changes colour or shape should always be checked as soon as possible.