Sensitivity of plasma BRAF and NRAS cell-free DNA assays to detect metastatic melanoma in patients with low RECIST scores and non-RECIST disease progression

Melanoma lacks a clinically useful blood-based biomarker of disease activity to help guide patient management. To determine whether measurements of circulating, cell-free, tumor-associated BRAFmutant and NRASmutant DNA (ctDNA) have a higher sensitivity than LDH to detect metastatic disease prior to treatment initiation and upon disease progression we studied patients with unresectable stage IIIC/IV metastatic melanoma receiving treatment with BRAF inhibitor therapy or immune checkpoint blockade and at least 3 plasma samples obtained during their treatment course.

Source: Molecular Oncology - September 22, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Gregory A. Chang, Jyothirmayee S. Tadepalli, Yongzhao Shao, Yilong Zhang, Sarah Weiss, Eric Robinson, Cindy Spittle, Manohar Furtado, Dawne N. Shelton, George Karlin-Neumann, Anna Pavlick, Iman Osman, David Polsky Source Type: research