Texas Retina’s Timothy Fuller, MD, in collaboration with and under the leadership of Dr. J. William Harbour, the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, participated in a multi-center clinical research study through the Collaborative Ocular Oncology Group (COOG) to better understand the early genetic evolution and malignant transformation of uveal melanoma, a rare and aggressive eye cancer. The results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
Striving to Improve Uveal Melanoma Care and Outcomes
Although rare, uveal melanoma can be aggressive and metastasize (spread to other parts of the body). Subclinical micrometastasis is thought to occur early, when tumors are small and difficult to distinguish from benign nevi, which are non-cancerous pigmented moles or freckles in the the middle part of the eye (uvea).
For this latest study, researchers developed a targeted 15-gene expression profile that was applied to 1,140 primary uveal melanomas. This included 131 small tumors, which are more likely to be in earlier stages of genetic evolution. The research team concluded that the genetic profiling tool helped to identify those small tumors that were undergoing transformation from low risk (Class 1) to high risk (Class 2).
“With uveal melanoma, there is a high rate of metastasis even after successfully treating the primary tumor,” explains Dr. Fuller. “We want to better understand and identify the early genetic events that occur so that we can more precisely treat select small tumors at an earlier stage and hopefully, improve patient outcomes, including survival. This study was a significant step forward in that effort, and we look forward to participating in additional research efforts that will advance care.”
About the Collaborative Ocular Oncology Group
Texas Retina has been involved in ocular melanoma research for more than 40 years, serving as an active member of the Collaborative Ocular Oncology Group (COOG), an organization of ocular and medical oncologists throughout North America who are specialized in the treatment of patients with intraocular cancers and currently focused on uveal melanoma. The COOG comprises more than 25 leading academic and private ocular oncology centers of excellence and has been continually funded by the National Cancer Institute for over a decade. They have conducted two large multi-center prospective studies of prognostic biomarkers in uveal melanoma, the first and only such studies ever conducted in this cancer, and are planning a major expansion into adjuvant and metastatic clinical trials in patients with uveal melanoma.