Australian researchers have shown that circulating antibodies against tumor antigens can be used as an accurate biomarker for the early detection of melanoma.
The findings were presented by Cristina Vico-Alonso, MD, lead researcher from the Victorian Melanoma Service, in Melbourne, Australia, at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology Congress 2024.
She told Inside Precision Medicine that a test incorporating these antibodies “would provide an earlier and more accurate diagnosis, which is essential for determining the most appropriate subsequent treatment for patients, particularly in the current scenario for melanoma, in which immunotherapy has become a game changer.”
Vico-Alonso explained that melanoma is a cancer with high mutation rate, which leads to the production of tumor antigens, known as cancer-testis antigens (CTAgs), that trigger a cellular and humoral immune response against cancer cells. The CTAg family comprises over 90 structurally and functionally diverse proteins that are aberrantly expressed in melanoma. This expression triggers the production of specific antibodies toward the relevant CTAg.
In the current study, Vico-Alonso and her team used a novel cancer-specific array developed by collaborators at the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute to determine whether these circulating antibodies can reliably aid the early detection of melanoma.
They tested the array, which can detect and quantify anti-CTAg IgG antibodies against over 100 tumor antigens, on plasma samples collected from 199 patients with stage I and stage II melanoma at diagnosis and within 30 days after curative-intent surgery of the primary tumor. The results were compared with those from 38 healthy individuals without melanoma.
The analysis highlighted three tumor antigens, unique to melanoma, that show promise as diagnostic biomarkers for early-stage melanomas. The area under the curves (AUC), which indicate the level of accuracy, for each of these ranged from 0.857 to 0.981 in participants assigned to
