skin immune system

in your health news. your time at the beach might be winding down. but-- protecting your skin should ã¡still be a priority.

skin immune system, for people already fighting melanoma. the immune system might be able to help. yale researchers taking part in a

clinical trial - that led to f-d-a approval of a promising treatment -- for late stage skin cancer. news 8 medical reporter jocelyn maminta with more on what you need to know. cancer research is moving more and more into what's called immuno-

oncology.basically-- working with our body's immune system to destroy cancer cells. benefitting patients like mary mannion. 3 mary mannion's skin cancer was first detected on her leg. "i think it's right here." a

faint scar lingers. "i had a mole that changed shape, size, color."stage four melanoma.surgeons removed it and mary underwent targeted therapy. eleven years later - -- the cancer came back. "the melanoma had metastasized here." most melanomas start

on the skin. "the problem is those cells can travel through the blood stream to other parts of the body." dr. mario sznol at smilow cancer hospital at yale-new haven -- is mary's doctor. "melanoma cells that have traveled from the primary site through the

blood stream to other organs, that's what's called metastatic melanoma."mary's cancer had spread to her liver, lung and soft tissue. "a large liver lesion here, this is another one here, this is another one here." fortunately for the high

school history teacher -- "i got the last seat in that clinical trial." at the time -- dr. sznol was researching the benefit of combining two drugs on patients with late stage skin cancer. the focus was unlocking the tight grip of

the tumor -- so the body's immune system could fight back. "what these antibodies do is, they block that off-switch so that the lymphocytes can stay on and can kill the tumor." a cat scan in july - "the liver now looks almost completely

normal." revealed nothing worrisome. "we'll have to come back in five years, six years and at seven 7 years to really say for sure that she won't have any recurrance but there is a very good chance she won't recurr." while dr. sznol cautions not every

patient will respond like mary -- the results he says are breakthrough. "if we look at a long term survival curve, we believe that the survival in five years will be somewhat 40 to 50 percent. remember that in the old days it used to be 5 to 10 percent." "i

plan to be around for many, many, more years." dr. sznol tells me -- the next step for researchers is to

focus on trying to understand why some patients like mary respond to therapies targeting their immune system -- and