- Researchers have developed a new way to spot melanoma skin cancer cells circulating in the blood that could provide a new avenue for cancer diagnosis and therapies.
- Until now melanoma circulating tumour cells have proved to be incredibly elusive, with detection rates wildly varying from 40 to 87 per cent. With the new approach, the researchers raised detection rates to 72 per cent which is higher than using one test.
- Cancer spreads around the body when circulating tumour cells (CTCs) shed from the primary tumour and travel through the blood to form secondary tumours (metastases) in other organs.