WEDNESDAY, Oct. 2, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Circulating antibodies against cancer-testis antigens (CTAgs) are found in stage I and stage II melanoma plasma samples, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, held from Sept. 25 to 28 in Amsterdam.

Cristina Vico-Alonso, M.D., from Monash University Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues examined whether anti-CTAg antibodies can aid in the early detection of melanoma using plasma samples from two cohorts. Cohort 1 included 264 patients diagnosed with melanoma in situ, stage I and stage II; cohort 2 included 108 heathy individuals without melanoma. Two different CTAg microarray platforms were used to profile the antibodies present in plasma (CT100+ and the Sengenics CTA Protein Microarrays).

To date, the CT100+ array has been used to assay 199 plasma samples from patients in cohort 1. The antibody profile was compared to results from 38 healthy individuals from cohort 2. The researchers identified specific immunoglobulin G antibodies against three tumor antigens as promising diagnostic biomarkers for early-stage melanomas; in the discovery and internal validation cohorts, the univariate areas under the curve varied from 0.857 to 0.981 and from 0.824 to 0.985, respectively.

"This method of early detection could be integrated into current melanoma screening practices to provide additional information, especially in uncertain cases, potentially avoiding unnecessary procedures," Vico-Alonso said in a statement.

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