SkylineDx’s Merlin Assay stratifies Stage I/II cutaneous melanoma beyond SLNB for recurrence
Source: PR Newswire, May 2024
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, and SAN DIEGO, May 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — SkylineDx announces the presentation of groundbreaking data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2024 Annual Meeting. Dr. Teresa Amaral, MD, PhD, medical oncologist from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, will present findings on the identification of patients at high-risk for relapse in an independent cohort of 432 patients with stage I/II melanoma who did not undergo sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) [1].
Cutaneous melanoma (CM) poses significant challenges as 40% [2] of melanoma-related deaths occur in patients diagnosed with early stages of the disease. Identifying high-risk tumors early enables physicians to take appropriate measures to detect potential relapses sooner with scheduling less intensive follow-up for patients with a low risk of recurrence. In the future, patients with high-risk tumors may also be considered for adjuvant therapeutic strategies. In this independent cohort analysis, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded primary tumor samples from patients diagnosed with CM Stage I or II disease between 2000 and 2020 were analyzed. The CP-GEP model in the Merlin Assay, utilizing 8 genes combined with the patient’s age and Breslow thickness, stratified patients into CP-GEP Low- or High-Risk categories for disease recurrence, independent of the SLNB.
CP-GEP Low-Risk patients demonstrated a melanoma specific survival of 99.7 at 5 years, while CP-GEP High-Risk patients had significantly heightened recurrence risk. The melanoma specific survival of the high-risk group was 42.2 at 5 years.