King Charles visited a melanoma clinic in Sydney where he met cancer survivors and researchers working on cures for the illness. There was no mention of the King's own diagnosis during the visit to the Melanoma Institute Australia, where Charles met melanoma survivor Adam Brown. Report by Kennedyl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Vancouver Cable Car
01:30So, I want to talk about the importance of early diagnosis, early detection.
01:57This is what a vertical section of the skin looks like when you look at it down a microscope.
02:03The top part of the skin is called the epidermis and the bottom part is the dengue-depand.
02:08But one of the side effects is it causes mutations to your DNA.
02:12And when you accumulate those mutations, they form a tumor, melanoma.
02:17I'm just going to flick us along the side here and show you the melanoma in this particular patient.
02:25And as we move here, we can see on the screen these large, pleomorphic-looking cells, some of which have pigment within them.
02:36So this is a melanoma. In fact, this is not a tough diagnosis of melanoma to make.
02:41But in about 25-20% of cases, it can be difficult.
02:45And we see some patients, unfortunately, who are not diagnosed correctly.
02:50So we've developed a molecular diagnostic test, which we know is very accurate for diagnosis.
02:57And if it's melanoma, we want to work out, is it a bad melanoma or a little risk of it spreading?
03:03And about 95% of people who are diagnosed with melanoma will be cured from simple excision.
03:10But when it gets thick like this, it's a bit more of a worry.
03:13So in this particular patient, melanoma was on the forearm.
03:18And then we sampled what's called a lymph gland from under the diagnosed and prognosticated for melanoma patients.
03:30I'll now pass you over to one of my patients, Adam Brown.
03:37When I met Adam, Christy here was pregnant with this young man, Harry.
03:43And he had stage 4 advanced melanoma.
03:47And we treated him on a clinical trial of immunotherapy over 10 years ago now, just about 10 years ago.
03:54Advanced melanoma, stage 4 melanoma, usually had a survival of less than 5% at 5 years.
04:00Most patients would have survived 9 to 12 months.
04:04And effectively, Adam is what we call one of our long-term survivors.
04:09And he's gone on to have children and a family.
04:13Two miracles.
04:14Yeah, and wonderful.
04:16And so you came here to get him treated.
04:20The original melanoma was found at a practice in the city.
04:25And then I was sent here.
04:27It started with some surgery through Professor Stretch over there.
04:31And then I was re-diagnosed.
04:33And then I was lucky enough to meet Georgina, just as her trial was about to begin.
04:38And I was the first patient on the first of the combined immunotherapy.
04:43And this was how long ago?
04:44That started in January 2015, as the commencement of the trial.
04:50I've got some scans to show you.
04:53The treatment isn't too bad, is it?
04:55Because the immunotherapy...
04:57There was minimal side effects.
05:00It didn't stop me carrying on with normal life.
05:03So you don't need it now?
05:05No, I'm off treatment.
05:07He had it for 2 years.
05:09And then in 2019, he actually developed a melanoma that had spread to the brain.
05:14And had more immunotherapy and surgery.
05:17See a spot there?
05:19Yes.
05:20And here.
05:21You see it's not on the other side.
05:22And here.
05:23All gone.
05:24Doing very well.
05:26When we stimulate the immune system, though, it can get confused.
05:30We can start attacking normal tissue.
05:33And there are side effects that we become very expert at managing.
05:37Oh, you do?
05:38Yes, I do.
05:39That's really encouraging.
05:40Yes, yes.
05:41That's another patient who's done very well with multiple metastases.
05:44So the black are what we call the metastases, where it's spread around.
05:48And this is what we're working on now.
05:50So in our clinical trials, we're using a lot of mRNA technology.
05:54We've got seven trials, actually, using mRNA technology.
05:57Not just vaccines, but other incredible, incredible leaps in medical research.
06:03So these are some of the things, those numbers of patients.
06:05And that's when we do it around the world.
06:07So some of our trials are around the world stage.
06:11Some of them are much earlier, what we call first in humans.
06:15But our goal, zero deaths from melanoma.
06:19I haven't been here in a very long time.
06:27Passion. Passion and love.
06:36I'm glad I didn't have to drag you away from all this.
06:43This is me?
06:45Are you still ill?
06:46Just a bit.
06:49Clothing is the best.
06:51A shade, sunglasses and sunscreen.
07:04Yes.
07:05There's a few rumours that it's the right side for you.
07:08You're welcome.
07:09You're welcome.
07:16Thank you so much for coming to visit us
07:19and for us to have the opportunity to talk more about Australia's national cancer,
07:24the one with the highest incidence in the world.
07:27And we've worked so hard to achieve our goal of zero deaths from melanoma.
07:32So thank you so much.
07:35Well, thank you.
07:37And particularly for shining a spotlight on Australia's national cancer, melanoma.
07:42So thank you very much.
07:43I hope you do.
07:45I hope so too.
07:46We all hope so.
07:48Thank you very much.
07:50I'm so glad they're still making the proper ones.
07:52Yes.