Grant: Project Grant

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Prior to 2010, very few people survived melanoma when it spread to distant parts of the body. But the research community developed therapies that boost your immune system to combat melanoma. This therapy can produce cures for some patients. But some patients do not respond, and others develop severe side effects. The standard immunotherapy treatment for melanoma patients lasts 2 years. It is not clear whether 2 years is the optimal duration of therapy. In this proposal we will bring together scientific experts using cutting-edge technologies to analyze blood and tissue samples with clinical expertise from the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) that are running a clinical trial to determine the optimal duration of immunotherapy. The goal of our study is to identify markers found in blood or a patient's melanoma that can be used in a clinical test to predict whether a patient will respond to immunotherapy, have a side effect, or can stop treatment. This would have important implications in improving outcomes, reducing duration of therapy if it is no longer needed, which will limit side effects and help reduce costs to the Canadian health care system.