New cancer therapy brings hope for patients with advanced melanoma

The FDA has approved a groundbreaking therapy for patients with late-stage melanoma. Melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer that's the fifth most deadly.

Too much sun is the leading cause of skin cancer. Surgery, immunotherapy and chemotherapy are the typical treatment options.

Now, scientists have engineered a way to boost a patient's immune cells to aggressively attack melanoma.

According to a medical professional, the process takes a piece of the tumor to develop engineered T cells to give back to the patient. The uniquely tailored tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) are created for each patient using their cancer cells.

The study showed 55% of the patients responded to the treatment, and for 1 in 7 patients, their cancer completely disappeared.

"I think immunotherapy was the first big advancement in melanoma, and I would say that this is the second one," Dr. Johnson said.

Ongoing clinical trials are exploring the potential of this therapy in earlier stages of melanoma and other cancers, like endometrial cancer and lung cancer