A study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting outlines a new method to assess the malignant potential of small uveal melanocytic tumors without the need for repeated intraocular biopsies.

Researchers analyzed aqueous humor samples from 79 patients diagnosed with uveal melanoma (UM) and tested with DecisionDx-UM (Castle Biosciences), a gene expression profile used to assess metastatic risk. Of the patients, 72 percent were classified as low risk and 28 percent as high risk. The team identified 386 proteins with significant differences between these groups (P<0.0001), which were used to develop several risk prediction models.

The approach could allow for earlier identification of high-risk lesions through a minimally invasive office-based liquid biopsy, potentially informing biopsy decisions and enabling earlier intervention. The highest-performing protein models may undergo further evaluation for use in clinical practice.

UM is the most common primary eye cancer, although it remains rare. About half of patients ultimately develop metastatic disease. RP