Trovagene launches study to monitor response to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma

Source: Healio.com/Dermatology, July 2015

Trovagene has launched a study to determine the utility of the company’s cancer monitoring technology in predicting response to treatment in patients with advanced melanoma who are receiving one or a combination of therapies of Yervoy and Opdivo, according to a press release.

“As more immunotherapies become available for the treatment of cancer, it becomes more important to have non-radiographic tools to assess treatment effects,” Paul Chapman, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who will be a researcher on the study, said in a press release. “Responses to immunotherapy vary greatly in timing and extent, and radiographic responses may not reflect accurately the true response. A rapid, accurate and quantitative method to determine therapeutic effect as early as possible could help align new treatment strategies to patients’ needs.”

The study will include 50 patients, according to the press release. Tumor dynamics in treated patients will be monitored by BRAF and NRAS oncogene mutations, which will be used as biomarkers, according to the release. Trovagene’s propriety technology will monitor cell-free DNA in urine as a liquid biopsy as a response to immunotherapy treatments of Yervoy (ipilimumab, Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Opdivo (nivolumab, Bristol-Myers Squibb).

The utility of circulating tumor in determining a response to early therapy or in correlating with the with the disease’s clinical course are the study’s primary objectives, according to the release.

“In this study, we attempt to better inform clinicians of the early benefits of immunotherapy in advanced melanoma,” Mark Erlander, PhD, chief scientific officer of Trovagene, said in the release. “We have previously shown in lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancers that our [precision cancer monitoring] platform can detect response to therapy within days of treatment.”