Assay Shows Promise for Early-Stage Melanoma Risk Assessment Beyond SLNB
Source: Medscape, April 2025
A noninvasive clinicopathologic and gene expression profiling (CP-GEP)–based tool, the Merlin assay, shows promise for identifying recurrence risks in patients with early-stage melanoma who do not undergo sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB).
This was the conclusion of a retrospective analysis of a large cohort of patients with stage I/II disease, reported by Teresa Amaral, MD, PhD, at the 11th World Congress of Melanoma and 21st EADO Congress 2025.
Of 930 patients included in the study, the assay identified 879 as having a low risk for recurrence and 51 as having high risk for recurrence. The overall 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and melanoma-specific survival (MSS) rates were 90.9%, 96.9%, and 97.5%, respectively.