Udai Kammula of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center stands with a patient who was treated with the new therapy for metastatic uveal melanoma at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. After more than a decade studying a rare eye cancer that produces some of the hardest-to-fight tumors, researchers from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have found a treatment that works on some patients and, more importantly, a tool that can predict when it is likely to succeed.
Scientists had long speculated that the reason uveal melanoma is so tough to fight is that something helps the tumor keep out T cells, a key part of the body’s immune system that develops in bone marrow. However, previous studies by Kammula and his colleagues showed that uveal melanoma tumors actually have T cells inside, and they are turned on.
To find out, the researchers analyzed samples from 100 different uveal melanoma tumors that had spread to different parts of the body in 84 patients, seeking to examine all of the tumors’ genetic material. The tool, known as a biomarker, assigns a score to a uveal melanoma tumor based on the likelihood that it will respond well to the treatment ― removing T cells, growing them outside the body, then reinfusing them.
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