NEW YORK – Castle Biosciences said Thursday that it is working in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute to link test results from its DecisionDx-Melanoma assay with data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program’s registries on cutaneous melanoma cases.
According to the company, initial retrospective analyses of database records up to 2018 have reflected results of its prior studies. Melanoma patients tested with its assay — a gene expression test intended to assess the risk of metastasis or recurrence — had better outcomes than untested individuals.
The firm now plans to continue the collaboration, linking SEER cases diagnosed post-2018 with DecisionDx-Melanoma test results.
The new data, shared in a poster presentation at the 2022 Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference in January, described results from an analysis of SEER data for a subset of cutaneous melanoma cases recorded between 2013 and 2018.
Researchers identified individuals in the database who had DecisionDx testing and matched them with an untested cohort with similar clinical, pathological, and demographic features.
Investigators reported that patients tested with DecisionDx-Melanoma had better overall survival rates than patients who had not been tested. Those who received a DecisionDx-Melanoma high-risk result had a tenfold increase in death rate compared to patients who received a low-risk result.