CUH research hope for advanced melanoma patients

A clinical trial at Cork University Hospital (CUH), the first of its kind in the world, may offer fresh hope to patients with advanced melanoma, a form of skin cancer with a traditionally poor prognosis.

Those who sign up to the trial will receive a drug called Ipilimumab or ‘Ipi’ and electrochemotherapy. Ipi is the first in a line of new immunotherapies that prevent tumours from shutting down the patient’s immune system when it’s attacking the cancer.

Electrochemotherapy involves a process known as electroporation, where short bursts of electricity are delivered directly to the tumour making it porous, and dramatically increasing its absorption of the chemotherapy drug.