Achievements

The charity has now spent over £1,000,000 on research and some of the resulting research publications have helped change the way the disease is managed, such as in pregnant women who develop the disease during pregnancy.

Some more recent projects are at the leading edge of research into much improved treatments for melanoma.

Until recently treatment choices for metastatic melanoma (disease that had spread from its original site) was limited and often ineffective.

Drugs have been developed in recent years that have significantly improved the prospects of patients with a particular gene mutation present in their particular melanoma.

Unfortunately over time further gene mutation renders the new drug ineffective but there are projects now underway looking at how the body’s own natural defenses can be used to overcome this problem.

Although we are still a long way off from finding a cure for or total prevention of malignant melanoma for the first time in a long time clinicians are optimistic that more effective and less toxic treatments are becoming available for some forms of malignant melanoma.