Pitt researchers uncover mechanisms behind uveal melanoma resistance

Source: News Medical Life Sciences, April 2024

New research from the University of Pittsburgh explains why metastatic uveal melanoma is resistant to conventional immunotherapies and how adoptive therapy, which involves growing a patient’s T cells outside the body before reinfusing them, can successfully treat this rare and aggressive cancer.

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, the Pitt researchers also explain how they developed a new clinical tool that predicts which patients will respond to adoptive therapy. The work, supported by UPMC Enterprises, is helping improve personalized therapies and avoid futile treatments for metastatic uveal melanoma.

Uveal melanoma originates in the uveal tract of the eye but has a tendency to aggressively spread throughout the body, often to the liver. When metastasis occurs, this cancer is very difficult to treat and the prognosis for patients is almost always grim.
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