Blood Test that Monitors Dead Cancer Cell DNA Better at Tracking Spread of Melanoma

Source: PR Newswire, January 2016

NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Physicians treating patients with metastatic melanoma — one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer — may soon have a superior tool in their efforts to closely track the disease.

A new study shows that a blood test which monitors blood levels of DNA fragments from dead cancer cells does a better job than the current standard test at tracking the severity and potential spread of metastatic melanoma. The study, by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, is set for publication tomorrow in the January edition of Molecular Oncology.

The standard test, in widespread use for decades to inform treatment decisions, measures blood levels of the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase, or LDH. Levels of the enzyme tend to spike during aggressive tumor growth, but are also known to rise as part of other diseases and biological functions. The alternative test looks at levels of circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA, released into the blood when tumor cells die and break apart to spill their contents.

In the new report, the NYU Langone team found that ctDNA levels in blood were elevated in 12 of 15 patients (80 percent) who were about to undergo treatment for their metastatic melanoma. By contrast, blood levels of LDH were elevated before therapy in seven of 23 patients (30 percent). Results also showed that ctDNA could detect cancer recurrence, as confirmed by X-ray or CT scan, in 22 of 26 patients tested (85 percent) and undergoing therapy, while LDH was elevated in only 14 patients (54 percent).