PETER LLOYD: A study has found that testing a key lymph node in some melanoma patients can improve survival rates by more than 40 per cent.
Scientists say the 20 year, international research confirms the importance of a procedure known as sentinel node biopsy.
They expect it would benefit the 20 per cent of patients who are at risk of the cancer spreading and would like to see the technique used more widely.
Caroline Winter reports.
CAROLINE WINTER: Six years ago today Jay Allen had three lymph nodes taken from his groin.
That was the urgent request by his specialist after doctors removed a mole on his ankle which was 1.95 millimetres deep.
JAY ALLEN: I still remember the words exactly, the way he said it, he goes it's my recommendation that we take the three lymph nodes out later this afternoon and I really believed that saved my life.
CAROLINE WINTER: One of those lymph nodes showed up microscopic cells of melanoma.
JAY ALLEN: I had to go back in and have a full lymph node dissection where they took out another 11 lymph nodes and some tissue from my stomach which left with 44 staples going down from my stomach to my thigh.
CAROLINE WINTER: Jay Allen had what's called a sentinel node biopsy.
It's a technique used to see if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes closest to the melanoma.
And that technique has been the focus of a 20 year international study by researchers in the USA, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia.
One of the authors, Associate Professor Brendon Coventry is from Adelaide University and the Melanoma Research Foundation.
BRENDON COVENTRY: What it's doing is tracing out the lymphatic pathway where the melanoma could spread because melanoma could spread because melanoma often spreads to lymph nodes and it can determine with quite high accuracy exactly where that lymph node is and we can take it out and the pathologist can tell us whether there's been spread or not.
CAROLINE WINTER: And so is that extended biopsy only done at request or when the doctor feels or is that something that should be done for every patient?
BRENDON COVENTRY: It's pretty much hit or miss at the moment around Australia as to whether you go to centre that actually does this sentinel node biopsy. It certainly offers a prognostic advantage to try and work out whether patients, what their course might be, but it's not been known before this study that it actually offers a survival advantage as well.
CAROLINE WINTER: The randomised study focused on 2,000 patients with high risk melanoma or those greater than 1.2 millimetres deep.
Some patients had a standard treatment which involved removing the tissue mass around the melanoma.
The rest received that treatment as well as the sentinel node biopsy which investigated the lymph nodes.
Associate Professor Coventry again.
BRENDON COVENTRY: We have been struggling to determine the patients that actually have spread to their lymph nodes and those that don't. Those that do, which is about 20 per cent, can benefit and this study demonstrates a 10 year survival benefit for melanomas of intermediate thickness and the improvement in survival is in the order of about 40 per cent.
CAROLINE WINTER: He says it shows the dramatic benefit of a biopsy early rather than later and would like to see the technique more widely used to help raise the survival rate among patients.
Associate Professor Coventry says it's a significant and timely find, with 12,000 Australian's diagnosed and around 1,400 dying as a result of melanoma each year.
The study has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
PETER LLOYD: That's Caroline Winter reporting.