A new technique for melanoma treatment

We all know that too much sun exposure can be dangerous – most of us have experienced the pain of a sunburn. Even in conditions that we don’t expect sun damage to occur, such as cloudy days or when it’s cold outside, it’s still possible.

Melanoma is caused by skill cells that begin to develop abnormally, which exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light is thought to cause. Sudden, intense sun exposure can be the most unexpected, but also the most dangerous. That’s why it’s important to be informed and prepared.

Why the focus on melanoma?

Melanoma is much less common than some of the other types of skin cancer, but melanoma is more dangerous because it more likely to spread quickly than other types.

Sun exposure adds up over time, so it’s logical that is more likely to occur in older people. However, melanoma is one of the most common cancers in people younger than 30, making it extremely important to educate younger generations of the dangers of skin cancer.

Liquid biopsy for monitoring

Signal transduction inhibition and immune checkpoint inhibition have greatly improved the treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma. Unfortunately, not all patients respond to such treatment. The standard way to measure whether the treatment is working is through radiological assessment. However, it may be too late to help the patient by the time it indicates resistance, which increases the need to find better ways to predict patient response to treatment.

Liquid biopsy analysis can offer essential and timely information that shows how the tumour is responding to the treatment and detect minimal residual disease. Through a simple and minimally invasive blood draw, liquid biopsy can reveal clinically relevant mutations in circulating-tumour DNA (ctDNA) that the tumour cells shed into the bloodstream. This information allows clinicians to monitor therapy in real time by repeated sampling, detect progression earlier than routine radiological scans and switch therapy if needed. [14]

Plasma-SeqSensei™ IVD Solid Cancer Kit enables highly sensitive and quantitative liquid biopsy analysis and detection on relevant mutations in BRAF, EGFR, KRAS, NRAS and PIK3CA genes utilising next-generation sequencing technology. PSS's short and standardised workflow delivers results within two days including the generation of easy-to-read reports using laptop-compatible Plasma-SeqSensei™ IVD Software.