Lead Investigator: José González-Gomariz, Fundacion para la Investigacion Medica Aplicada (FIMA)
Title of Proposal Research: Study of the expression of several cytokines related with the survival of advanced melanoma patients
Vivli Data Request: 7882
Funding Source: None
Potential Conflicts of Interest: None
Summary of the Proposed Research:
The global incidence of melanoma in 2015 was 351 880 cases and actually we are currently witnessing a worldwide increase in the incidence due increased exposure to sunshine hours. Although immunotherapy is a revolutionary cancer treatment option, approximately half of patients at some point stop responding to treatment because melanoma cells find another pathway that lets them start growing again. One of them is the production of several molecules such as interleukin (IL)-8, which acts by producing a local inflammation that protects malignant cells. On the other hand, our body has defence mechanisms to protect itself from infections or cells that the body detects as foreign. Type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) , are police-like cells that recognise these types of foreign agents and act by recruiting other cell types that can kill the tumour cells. We suspect that high levels of IL-8 in the medium impede the arrival of cDC1 cells, preventing the recognition of tumour cells.
Our goal with this study is to demonstrate that the presence of IL-8 at high levels coupled with low levels of cDC1 leads to a worse response to treatment of the patients and correlates with a worse survival time. If our hypothesis is correct, new drugs could be designed by combining IL-8 blocking molecules to existing treatments, thus improving the response to treatment of a part of these patients. We will study other molecules with similar function than IL-8, such as IL-6, IL-17 and IL-23. In the last part of our analysis we will apply machine learning methods to classify patients in the hope of finding a new signature that will allow a better prediction of the possible response of patients to treatment before starting with.
Requested Studies:
PH 1 Biomarker Study of Nivolumab and Ipilimumab and Nivolumab in Combination With Ipilimumab in Advanced Melanoma (PD-1)
Data Contributor: Bristol Myers Squibb
Study ID: NCT01621490