The study included a prospective cohort of 1,124 patients with melanoma from nine dermatology centers participating in the Cutaneous Oncology Research Consortium (CORC)
Image: Nomogram uses Castle Biosciences’ DecisionDx-Melanoma Test. Photo: Courtesy of Darko Stojanovic from Pixabay .
Castle Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSTL), a skin cancer diagnostics company providing personalized genomic information to improve cancer treatment decisions, today announced the presentation of results from a study validating a newly developed nomogram tool that combines information from the DecisionDx®-Melanoma test with clinicopathologic features to improve prediction of patients’ risk of melanoma recurrence.
The study titled, “Development and validation of a clinically useful nomogram incorporating molecular clinicopathologic factors to predict risk of recurrence in patients with cutaneous melanoma,” was presented during an Oral Abstract session at the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) Annual Meeting, October 24-27 in Chicago.
“The nomogram combines results from the DecisionDx-Melanoma prognostic test with clinical and pathological features to create an accurate tool that is designed to improve risk assessment beyond staging factors alone,” said study co-author Ryan Thorpe, M.D., Ada West Dermatology, Meridan, Idaho. “Using the nomogram to estimate patient risk, we believe physicians can optimize treatment decisions such as sentinel lymph node biopsy, frequency of follow-up, the need for imaging, as well as evaluate entry into clinical trials.”
Current melanoma guidelines recommend that treatment management be guided by an individual patient’s risk of metastasis or recurrence, which is impacted by clinical and pathologic features. This study combined the DecisionDx-Melanoma test result with clinicopathologic features to develop a nomogram tool that provides a more accurate determination of the risk of recurrence in patients with melanoma compared to clinical and pathologic features alone.
The study included a prospective cohort of 1,124 patients with melanoma from nine dermatology centers participating in the Cutaneous Oncology Research Consortium (CORC). Those with at least one year of follow-up or a recurrence event who also had complete clinicopathologic information and a DecisionDx-Melanoma result available were included in the nomogram development (n=685). The median follow-up time of this cohort was 3.0 years and median age was 67 years. The majority of patients had thin melanoma (84% had a tumor 1 mm deep or less), and ulceration was present in 7% of patients. The DecisionDx-Melanoma prognostic test for cutaneous melanoma predicts 5-year risk of recurrence and metastasis as low risk (Class 1, 1A lowest risk) or high risk (Class 2, 2B highest risk).
Source: Company Press Release