Biopsy-Free Detection of Melanoma Metastasis

Source: Cancer Network, December 2015

According to the results of a new study, a new imaging technique is able to detect the distant spread of melanoma to the lymph nodes, which could help patients avoid potentially risk surgery. Researchers tested the non-invasive technique in a first-in-human study as a potential alternative to standard lymph node surgery.

The results, from researchers at the University Hospital Essen and the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, are published in Science Translational Medicine.

The novel audio-visual approach used to image patients with melanoma both ex vivo and in vivo significantly improved the tumor metastasis detection rate in excised sentinel lymph nodes compared with standard protocols (22.9% vs 14.2%).

For patients diagnosed with melanoma, cancer guidelines recommend a sentinel lymph node excision to assess the presence of microscopic metastatic disease. Yet in most patients, the surgery does not find evidence of cancer spread and exposes patients to potential complications and adverse effects from surgery.