Department of Melanoma, Cancer Immunotherapy and Innovative Therapies Istituto Nazionale Tumori-IRCCS Fondazione G. Pascale, Naples, Italy.
SAFU Laboratory, Department of Research, Advanced Diagnostics and Technological Innovation, Translational Research Area, IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy.
Theranostics. 2022 Oct 24;12(17):7420-7430. doi: 10.7150/thno.77761. eCollection 2022.
Metastatic melanoma is the most aggressive and dangerous form of skin cancer. The introduction of immunotherapy with Immune checkpoint Inhibitors (ICI) and of targeted therapy with BRAF and MEK inhibitors for BRAF mutated melanoma, has greatly improved the clinical outcome of these patients. Nevertheless, response to therapy remains highly variable and the development of drug resistance continues to be a daunting challenge. Within this context there is a need to develop diagnostic tools capable of predicting response or resistance to therapy in order to select the best therapeutic approach. Over the years, accumulating evidence brought to light the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) as disease biomarkers. In particular, the detection of miRNAs in whole blood or specific blood components such as serum or plasma, allows these molecules to be good candidates for diagnosis, prognosis and for monitoring response to anticancer therapy. In this paper, we evaluated circulating basal levels of 6 previously identified miRNAs in serum samples of 70 BRAF-mutant melanoma patients before starting targeted therapy. Results show that the circulating levels of the oncosuppressor miR-579-3p and of the oncomiR miR-4488 are able to predict progression free survival (PFS) but not overall survival (OS). Most importantly, we observed that the best predictor of disease outcome is represented by the ratio of circulating miR-4488 miR-579-3p (miRatio). Finally, the combination of the Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) blood levels with the two circulating miRNAs alone or together did not produce any improvement in predicting PFS indicating that miR-579-3p and miR-4488 are independent predictors of PFS as compared to LDH. All together these data underscored the relevance of circulating miRNAs as suitable tools to predict therapy response in melanoma and maybe further developed as companion diagnostics in the clinic.
转移性黑色素瘤是最具侵袭性和危险性的皮肤癌。免疫检查点抑制剂(ICI)的免疫疗法和针对 BRAF 突变黑色素瘤的 BRAF 和 MEK 抑制剂的靶向治疗的引入,极大地改善了这些患者的临床结果。然而,治疗反应仍然高度可变,药物耐药性的发展仍然是一个令人生畏的挑战。在这种情况下,需要开发能够预测治疗反应或耐药性的诊断工具,以选择最佳的治疗方法。多年来,越来越多的证据表明 microRNAs(miRNAs)作为疾病生物标志物的作用。特别是,在全血或血清或血浆等特定血液成分中检测 miRNAs,使这些分子成为诊断、预后和监测抗癌治疗反应的良好候选物。在本文中,我们在开始靶向治疗之前,评估了 70 名 BRAF 突变黑色素瘤患者的血清样本中 6 种先前鉴定的 miRNAs 的循环基础水平。结果表明,肿瘤抑制 miR-579-3p 和肿瘤 miR miR-4488 的循环水平能够预测无进展生存期(PFS),但不能预测总生存期(OS)。最重要的是,我们观察到疾病结果的最佳预测因子是循环 miR-4488 miR-579-3p(miRatio)的比值。最后,将乳酸脱氢酶(LDH)血液水平与两种循环 miRNA 单独或一起组合使用并不能提高预测 PFS 的能力,表明与 LDH 相比,miR-579-3p 和 miR-4488 是 PFS 的独立预测因子。所有这些数据都强调了循环 miRNAs 作为预测黑色素瘤治疗反应的合适工具的重要性,并且可能进一步开发为临床中的伴随诊断工具。
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