The headline scrolling across the bottom of an evening news show certainly grabbed my attention: a new blood test had the possibility of detecting early melanoma and saving thousands of lives. And then there were more reports elevating this early research report to a point that I became quite interested — and frankly concerned.
News flash: The research is far from being shown to have proven value in the early diagnosis of melanoma, a less common but certainly potentially deadly form of skin cancer. I am not certain the various media headlines and articles appropriately reflected that fact, once again offering hype over inconvenient reality.
The researchers who wrote the report are from Australia, a country with a particularly high incidence of melanoma and a long history of trying to increase public awareness to prevent melanoma and alternatively find it early, when it is most effectively treated.
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