In the last decade, the advent of immunotherapies with inhibitors of immune checkpoints, such as anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4, has revolutionized the treatment of advanced or metastatic melanoma. However, the clinical benefit remains limited to a subset of patients. Identifying the patients most likely to benefit from these novel therapies (and avoiding unnecessary toxicity in non-responding patients) is therefore critical. Previous studies found a significant link between the high mutational load of a tumor (TMB) and its response to anti-PD-1 monotherapy, regardless of the histological type of cancer. Unfortunately, TMB measurement is expensive, and requires extensive sequencing approaches difficult to implement in clinical practice. I have shown that melanomas known to be secondary to mutagenic ultraviolet rays (UVR) often carry a high TMB. The cumulative UVR damage translates into visible stigmas termed "dermatoheliosis" on patients' skin, easy to recognize with the naked eye of the clinician around the scar of the primary melanoma. My project proposes to establish, for the first time, dermatoheliosis as a novel predictive factor of response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, to be used within multidisciplinary tumor boards as a powerful decision-support tool to select the best treatment option. Specifically, I will 1) develop, validate and test in a prospective manner, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithm, to assess features of pericicatricial dermatoheliosis based on a collection of photographs obtained from patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic melanoma 2) demonstrate the link between dermatoheliosis, TMB, immune and treatment response by characterizing pericicatricial skin single cell transcriptomics, as well as tumor DNA, RNA and host immunological profiles of the patients. This directly accessible, non-invasive, surrogate marker for TMB will be a game changer in clinical practice and will subsequently be translated to other skin cancers.
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Healthy volunteers are participants who do not have a disease or condition, or related conditions or symptoms |
No |
Study Type
An interventional clinical study is where participants are assigned to receive one or more interventions (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes. An observational clinical study is where participants identified as belonging to study groups are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes. Searching Both is inclusive of interventional and observational studies. |
Observational |
Eligible Ages | 18 Years and Over |
Gender | All |
Trial ID:
This trial id was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, providing information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants with locations in all 50 States and in 196 countries. |
NCT05856565 |
Phase
Phase 1: Studies that emphasize safety and how the drug is metabolized and excreted in humans. Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (whether the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and additional safety data. Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs. Phase 4: Studies occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing, efficacy, or optimal use. |
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Lead Sponsor
The sponsor is the organization or person who oversees the clinical study and is responsible for analyzing the study data. |
Nantes University Hospital |
Principal Investigator
The person who is responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the entire clinical study. |
N/A |
Principal Investigator Affiliation | N/A |
Agency Class
Category of organization(s) involved as sponsor (and collaborator) supporting the trial. |
Other |
Overall Status | Recruiting |
Countries | France |
Conditions
The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. |
Metastatic Melanoma |
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