title: Assessing Response to New Treatments and Prognosis in Melanoma Patients, by the Biomarker S-100β.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Malignant melanoma incidence is increasing over the last years, while mortality is strongly decreasing due to improved early detection, close monitoring of patients including disease biomarkers as well as introduction of new therapies. The aim of the present study was to evaluate biomarkers, mainly S-100β in melanoma patients, regarding its ability to assess treatment response, especially to new immunotherapies (anti-BRAF, ipilimumab, anti-PD-1) and evaluation of prognosis of those patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We evaluated both retrospectively and prospectively 137 malignant melanoma patients. Blood biomarker levels were evaluated by conventional ELISA assays. Correlations of marker levels to disease stage, metastases, response to new immunotherapies and survival, were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Serum levels of biomarkers, mainly S-100β, were significantly higher in all patients before various therapies were applied (5.1+0.7 μg/L) and decreased thereafter (1.3+0.4 μg/L). Significantly higher levels of S-100β were demonstrated in advanced disease including metastases, (5.95+0.62 μg/L) as opposed to early disease (0.32+0.06 μg/L) and NED patients (0.18+0.03 μg/L). When comparing melanoma deceased patients who had extremely high levels of S-100β, (2.2+0.45 μg/L) we showed significantly lower levels in alive patients (0.26+0.02 μg/L) and certainly in normal controls (0.07+0.02 μg/L). In individual patients, kinetic evaluations showed earlier response to therapy, or recurrence and non-response, as shown only later by CT evaluations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  S-100β can serve as a useful biomarker for the assessment of treatment response and prognosis, especially after using new immunological treatments, such as anti-BRAF, ipilimumab or anti-PD1 in malignant melanoma patients. Additional biomarkers, such as LDH, β2M and TK may also serve as part of a biomarkers panel, for improved detection of recurrence and metastasis of melanoma patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel barakvivi@hadassah.org.il barakvivi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Vivian
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Barak
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Leibovici
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Tamar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Peretz
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Ina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kalichman
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lotem
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Hadassah, Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Merims
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D011379:Prognosis; D064568:S100 Calcium Binding Protein beta Subunit / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D064568:S100 Calcium Binding Protein beta Subunit
keywords: Melanoma; biomarkers; prognosis; treatment response