Uveal melanoma is a common malignant tumor in the eyes of adults. The tumor tissue has strong invasion and is easy to metastasize through the blood route. The clinical prognosis after metastasis is poor. There are many ways to metastasis of uveal melanoma. It is of great significance to improve the survival rate of patients and the level of prevention and treatment of uveal melanoma by studying the clinicopathological characteristics, invasion and metastasis mechanism of uveal melanoma, seeking the markers and possible therapeutic targets for early metastasis of uveal melanoma, and conducting effective monitoring and intervention. A research team was formed by ophthalmologists from Karolinska Medical College in Stockholm, Sweden, and St. Eric eye hospital. Professor Christina herrspiegel, the research member, reported that they had developed a prognostic test called serum, which can be used as a powerful predictor of metastasis of uveal melanoma.
research method
The study selected 83 patients (52% were female; the mean age at the time of diagnosis was 65 years old) who were diagnosed with uveal melanoma in St. Eric eye hospital from 1996 to 2000. Serum was obtained from peripheral blood samples of these patients for serum prognosis test.
All patients were diagnosed as primary melanoma of choroid or ciliary body.
The researchers performed proteomic analysis on 84 different cancer-related proteins to screen potential biomarkers, and performed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to evaluate the serum level of the best candidate protein. The recipient operating characteristics were used to define the threshold of metastasis risk.
The serum prognostic test was developed in the training queue and tested in the validation queue.
The average tumor diameter and thickness of the patients participating in the study were 9.8 mm and 4.9 mm respectively.
Research results
Proteomic analysis evaluated five proteins: leptin, osteopontin, granin precursor, tenascin C and DLL-1 for further analysis. The prognostic test was based on the leptin and osteopontin concentrations developed in the training cohort (n=17) and was performed in the validation cohort (n=62) after excluding three patients with unreliable total protein scores. The results show that:
With the increase of metastasis risk categories, the cumulative metastasis free survival of patients gradually shortened (log rank of trend p=0.01).
Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that serum was an independent predictor of metastasis when all the following covariates, tumor diameter, tumor thickness, and patient age at diagnosis were entered (hazard ratio 2.4, 95% confidence interval, 1.0-5.3).
Professor herrspiegel concluded that the serum prognosis test is a method based on the serum obtained from peripheral blood samples of patients when diagnosing uveal melanoma, and is a powerful predictor of uveal melanoma metastasis. At the same time, Professor herrspiegel stressed that more prospective studies are needed in the future to verify the results of current studies.
reference material: https://europe.ophthalmologytimes.com/view/predicting-metastasis-with-novel-prognostic-liquid-biopsy-for-uveal-melanoma