Molecular Testing Making Strides in Melanoma Care
Unlike most other cancer types, rates of melanoma are increasing. Melanoma rates doubled between 1982 and 2011, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). When diagnosed early, melanoma is highly survivable, but survival rates for advanced, stage IV melanoma remain below 20 percent. As new therapeutic options enter the commercial market, it is hoped these survival rates will improve. According to the CDC, the annual cost of treating new melanoma cases is projected to nearly triple from $457 million in 2011 to $1.6 billion in 2030. Given the increasing cost of treating record numbers of melanoma patients with expensive new therapies, payers are particularly interested in identifying the subset of patients most likely to achieve clinical benefit from the treatment. Academic centers like Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.) have initiated extensive molecular testing in patients with advanced melanoma. Jeffrey Sosman, M.D., director of Vanderbilt’s melanoma program, tells DTET that using a next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform the medical center is testing 300 genes (including point mutations, deletions, and amplifications in expression levels). "We are looking at a broad number of genes that are not all targetable right now, but hopefully, in the future we will use […]
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