A new method to detect melanoma cancer cells circulating in the blood may be the key to detecting deadly cancer early and saving lives, a new study says.

A team of researchers at Edith Cowan University’s Melanoma Research Group, Western Australian hospitals, and the Harvard Medical School, and revealed that a new procedure they developed could detect circulating tumor cells (CTCs), paving the way for early diagnosis and potential therapies.

Melanoma is a rare type of skin cancer, but it’s the deadliest with an expected 100,350 new melanoma cases to be diagnosed in 2020, increasing by 2 percent, with an estimated 6,850 deaths.