The Melanoma risk

[BlueJay28]

Lets say for instance... I made Antarctica into a country right, and people lived there..

Nature takes its toll, and in the course of 4 or 5 generations, it makes our already white skin become more like the color of a polar bear... than a European, and gave us weird things like a redheaded and white haired majority, and heterochromia.. which isn't a disease btw, it just means that our eyes are two different colors, for instance 1 green and 1 blue.

What is the chances of us getting Melanoma if we traveled to relatively nearby Australia, or the Southern part of the USA or Africa for a summer or two ?

 

[waltky]

Pair of drugs 'eliminate 20% of tumours'...

Skin cancer: Pair of drugs 'eliminate 20% of tumours'
Tue, 19 Apr 2016 - A fifth of people with advanced melanoma have no sign of tumours in their body after treatment with a pair of immunotherapy drugs, a study shows.

A fifth of people with advanced melanoma have no sign of tumours in their body after treatment with a pair of immunotherapy drugs, a study shows. The first survival data on using ipilimumab and nivolumab in combination showed 69% of patients, in a trial on 142, were still alive after two years. UK doctors leading the trial said the results were "very encouraging". Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is the sixth most common cancer in the UK. It kills more than 2,000 people in Britain each year. More studies on the emerging field of immunotherapy will be presented later.

Immunotherapy revolution

The immune system is a powerful defence against infection. However, there are many "brakes" built in to stop it attacking our own tissues. Cancer - which is a corrupted version of healthy tissue - can take advantage of those brakes to evade assault. Ipilimumab and nivolumab are designed to cut the brakes. Both have become standard therapies in melanoma, but most researchers believe combination therapy will be essential. The trial showed the survival rate after two years for ipilimumab alone was 53% and no patient's tumours had completely disappeared. The equivalent figures for combination therapy were 69% and 22%.

However, more than half of patients had severe to life-threatening side effects which stopped their treatment. Dr James Larking, who ran part of the trial at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, told the BBC News website: "It is very encouraging to see that survival rate. "It will be important in terms of working out the benefit of these treatments in the longer term, but nevertheless it's a relatively small study still." A much larger trial involving nearly 1,000 patients has already started releasing data, but has not run for long enough to produce survival figures.

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[waltky]

High costs of melanoma drugs in Europe...

Thousands of European melanoma patients lack access to new drugs
October 7, 2016 - More than a quarter of European patients with advanced melanoma lack access to new treatments that could extend their lives, according to findings presented at a major cancer conference on Friday.

In the last five years, novel medicines have revolutionized prospects for people with metastatic melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. But the high cost of the treatments, which can top $100,000 a year, means thousands still do not get the new drugs, a survey found. Out of an estimated 19,250 metastatic melanoma patients treated annually, 5,228 or 27 percent do not have access to new drugs that are now recommended under European treatment guidelines. "This is especially the case for eastern and south-eastern European countries, where a majority of patients are still treated with palliative chemotherapy that does not prolong overall survival," said Lidija Kandolf-Sekulovic, a professor of dermatology at Serbia's Military Medical Academy.

New drugs including immunotherapies from the likes of Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb, as well as so-called BRAFi+MEKi combinations from Novartis and Roche, can prolong overall survival to more than 18 months. In some cases, survival is now measured in many years. But these medicines cost far more than conventional chemotherapy, straining European healthcare budgets. International experts are meeting this weekend in Copenhagen for the annual European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) congress to discuss the latest drug trials and future cancer care.

The public health challenges in patient access to therapies is a major theme of the meeting, as doctors grapple with the implications of using a new generation of medicines. "Doctors should treat patients with the best drug at the best time ... it is not their role to decide about the cost," Solange Peters, head of medical oncology at Lausanne University Hospital, Switzerland, told Reuters. "But I do think we need more doctors going into politics to try and inform this debate because it's going to be a big problem for the next 20 years to come."

In the case of metastatic melanoma, the survey found that in western Europe 70 percent of patients were treated with the latest innovative medicines, while in eastern Europe less than 10 percent of patients got them. Alexander Eniu, who chairs ESMO's global policy committee, said it was "unacceptable" to see such inequalities in drug availability and accessibility.

Thousands of European melanoma patients lack access to new drugs

 

[Skull Pilot]

Lets say for instance... I made Antarctica into a country right, and people lived there..

Nature takes its toll, and in the course of 4 or 5 generations, it makes our already white skin become more like the color of a polar bear... than a European, and gave us weird things like a redheaded and white haired majority, and heterochromia.. which isn't a disease btw, it just means that our eyes are two different colors, for instance 1 green and 1 blue.

What is the chances of us getting Melanoma if we traveled to relatively nearby Australia, or the Southern part of the USA or Africa for a summer or two ?

you don't know that a polar bear's skin is actually black do you?