Navigating the Melanoma Maze with Professor Brendon Coventry Part 1

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Like many advanced cancers, advanced Melanoma is renowned to be refractory to treatments. On today’s show, my guest Professor Brendon Coventry, an Adelaide-based oncology surgeon suggests there may be another way.

With a special interest in Melanoma Surgery, he is also a researcher whose interests include anti-tumour immune response in human malignancies, tumour Immunology and cancer vaccine treatments.

Results of Prof Coventry et al research paper, pub 2014 titled ?Vaccinia Melanoma Cell Lysate Vaccine (VMCL) Trial for treatment of advanced Stage IV Melanoma with and without Chemotherapy?, in collaboration with Professor Peter Hersey; captured the attention of medical and scientific community.

Trial conclusions reported ?relatively high complete response rates, useful clinical responses & long term survival with little toxicity?. Prof Coventry with colleague Martin Ashdown, has an active interest in timing of therapy in association with cancer vaccines.

Professor Brendon Coventry MBBS PhD FRACS – Brendon Coventry is an A/Professor of Surgery at University of Adelaide. Director of Research for the Australian Melanoma Research Foundation, Prof Coventry, a Surgical Oncologist (General Cancer Surgeon) is also PhD Immunologist with many years experience in cancer research, vaccine therapies and the role of the immune system in cancer control.

Brendon?s experience has brought him into contact with every aspect of the effects of Melanoma on the human body and sufferers. Work as a Clinical Oncologist has also emphasised that while Melanoma can often be dealt with successfully using surgery, when Melanoma has spread, the available treatments are a long way from successful. His research also leads to a hypothesis that “Treatments ‘randomly’ given without consideration to a patient’s immune cycle may explain why some patients achieve a complete recovery and others do not.”

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