This Simple Test Predicts Which Melanoma Patients Are At Risk Of Cancer Recurrence

Recent estimates suggested that 96,480 Americans will be diagnosed with invasive skin melanoma this year. More women than men have been diagnosed with this disease before they turn 50 years old.

For most melanoma patients, the disease begins as a small, pigmented skin spot that they notice to see changes in. While many primary melanomas can be cured by removing such skin lesions, it can sometimes spread or recur. The lesions are still analyzed the same way it was a century before. It is unfortunate that the analyses of skin cancer lesions remain simplistic despite several advances in molecular diagnostics.

However, the team of researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital discovered a new technique that leverages DNA sequencing to accurately predict which primary melanomas are likely to spread or recur.

“As recently as 10 years ago the outlook for metastatic melanoma was dismal, but we now have treatments to offer patients with metastatic disease and may also be able to apply these treatments when primary disease hasn’t metastasized,” Technology Networks quoted the study’s co-author Thomas Kupper, MD, chair of the Department of Dermatology at the Brigham. “Because of the advent of these new immunotherapy treatments, it’s important to have a clear idea of which patients are likely to progress so that we can tailor treatment accordingly,” he added.

They sought to find out if certain measurable features of T-cells could predict recurrence in patients whose primary melanomas were surgically removed. They compared samples from melanoma patients whose disease has progressed to metastatic disease to those whose melanoma didn’t. Using high-throughput DNA sequencing, they analyzed the T-cell repertoires of the tumors.

The findings of the study suggested that the T-cell fraction was a potential and independent predictor of which patients would progress.

The test is simple, elegant and quantitative and can be used to add value to predictions about melanoma progression. Although the test is commercially available for research use alone, it isn’t put into clinical use yet. In the future, such tests can not only benefit healthcare professionals who can tailor treatment but also make the patients benefit from checkpoint inhibitor therapy.