Maligant Melanoma is one of the most common deadly cancers, and robust biomarkers are still needed, e.g. to predict survival and treatment efficiency.
The European Cancer Moonshot Lund Center has undertaken a metastasis tumor tissue study together with the South Swedish healthcare region, comprising 10 hospitals with a population of 2 Mill.
The Melanoma study undertakes protein expression analysis of one hundred eleven melanoma lymph node metastases that were surgically isolated, following strict guidelines, using high resolution mass spectrometry is coupled with in-depth histopathology analysis, clinical data and genomics profiles. This wide-ranging view of protein expression allowed to identify novel candidate protein markers that improved prediction of survival in melanoma patients. We were able to distinguish long survivors from the short survivor patient group. Some of these prognostic proteins have not been reported in the context of melanoma before, and few of them exhibit unexpected relationship to survival, which likely reflects the limitations of current knowledge on melanoma and shows the potential of Proteomics being integrated within clinical cancer research.