A preclinical model of patient-derived cerebrospinal fluid circulating tumor cells for experimental therapeutics in leptomeningeal disease from melanoma

This study demonstrates that CSF-CTCs can be grown in vitro and in vivo from some melanoma patients with LMD and used as preclinical models. These models retained melanoma expression patterns and had signaling pathways that are therapeutically targetable. These novel models/reagents may be useful in developing rationally designed treatments for LMD.