Richard Scolyer: Top doctor remains brain cancer-free after a year

A year after a massive seizure triggered his brain cancer diagnosis, top melanoma doctor Richard Scolyer remains cancer-free.

The Australian has undergone a world-first, experimental treatment for glioblastoma, based on his own pioneering melanoma research.

His subtype of cancer is so aggressive most patients survive less than a year.

But the 57-year-old announced on Tuesday his latest MRI scan had again showed no recurrence of the tumour.

“I couldn’t be happier!!!!!” he wrote in an update on social media.

Prof Scolyer is an internationally renowned pathologist, and was this year named Australian of the Year alongside his colleague and friend Georgina Long, in recognition of their life-changing work on melanoma.

Co-directors of the Melanoma Institute Australia, over the past decade their team’s research on immunotherapy, which uses the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells, has dramatically improved outcomes for advanced melanoma patients globally. Half are now essentially cured, up from less than 10%.

It’s that research that Professor Long, alongside a team of doctors, is using to treat Prof Scolyer – in the hope of finding a cure for his cancer too.