Queensland researchers will lead a project to create a blueprint for a national melanoma screening program.
Behavioural scientist Monika Janda, from the University of Queensland, said the research team hoped to study 15,000 Australians over three years to design an affordable and effective screening program for the skin cancer.
Australia has the highest melanoma rates in the world, with about 16,000 people diagnosed annually and 1,400 dying of the disease.
Professor Janda said the researchers would use total body imaging machines, which create a 3D avatar of each patient, to track and detect changes to spots on the skin.
Researchers would also study the patients' genetics through saliva testing.
Participants will complete an online melanoma risk assessment questionnaire based on information such as age, gender, skin colour, tanning ability and freckling tendency, as part of the project.
Volunteers needed for study
The aim is for the researchers to develop protocols for a melanoma screening program that would be cost-effective and designed to detect the skin cancer at an early stage.
“If we can bring it all together and we can show that it's cost effective, then hopefully we can present a proposal to government,” Professor Janda said.
“A screening program could formalise the process of skin checks across Australia and prevent more serious melanomas.
Australia has national screening programs for breast, cervical and bowel cancers, but none for melanoma.
The researchers are particularly interested in people volunteering for the study who do not believe they are at risk of melanoma.
'I’ve been very, very lucky'
Melanoma survivor Rod Flude, 63, said skin checks had saved his life.
The retired corporate financier, father and grandfather, who spent a lot of time in the sun with minimal sunscreen use as a young man, has had four melanomas on his back and upper arm removed at early stages.
His wife sent him to a skin cancer clinic in 2005 to have a mole checked.
“That one was fine, but they found a melanoma on my right shoulder blade,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of having a national screening program for melanoma, Mr Flude said: "I couldn’t be more convinced that this is the way to go".
"I’ve been very, very lucky but everybody should end up feeling lucky,” he said.
Mr Flude said he wanted to make sure none of his family, including three fair-haired daughters and a granddaughter, could “be taken” by melanoma.
Volunteers for the University of Queensland-led project are needed across Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
The project is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.
