DALLAS, TEXAS—
About a year and a half ago, Mary Ryan, had a mole examined and soon after joined a long list of people diagnosed with melanoma. Her dermatologist called while she was driving and told her to pull over."And she said you have a large malignant, very thick tumor on your back." Mary says. "It turned out it was under that mole and we need you to have surgery this week."
Now, there may be new hope on the horizon for melanoma patients like Mary. UT Southwester researchers are studying a new antigen which may be able to track down and kill cancer cells in melanoma patients. Dr. James Huth says the antigen targets proteins found only in melanoma cells.
"What we are giving the patient is something that the immune system recognizes as abnormal and the immune system gathers it's forces and tries to fight it off."
Dr. Huth says the number of melanoma cases is rising faster than any other cancer. He says there are documented cases when melanoma patients get sick with the flu and the melanoma suddenly goes away. The antigen will try to trick the immune system into doing the exact same thing.
"The theory being that the immune system was stimulated and in addition to attacking the virus that was causing the flu, for some reason, the immune system also started attacking the melanoma and it went away."
Right now, the only real weapon in the war on melanoma is interferon. Mary went through that therapy and says she doesn't wish it on anyone.
"One of the side effects of interferon is suicide, it is so brutal on your body that most patients on interferon have to take huge doses of antidepressant to combat the side effect of that."
Now, Mary hopes researchers see the light, and their search and destroy mission can save lives.
"I hope that that's in the near future and not the distant future."
UT Southwestern is one of about fifty hospitals across the country taking part in the study which will continue for about five years.
