Magnetic Resonance Metabolomics on blood as a predictor of metastatic disease in melanoma

Motivation: Malignant melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer, typically associated with a poor prognosis due to distant, invasive metastasis that are often challenging to diagnose. Goal(s): We wished to see if a previously-applied whole-blood MR metabolomics classification algorithm could distinguish patients with distant metastasis from those with only locally advanced disease Approach: We have recently received consent to undertake this trial on 200 melanoma patients who may have undiagnosed distant metastasis at the time of sampling. We undertook 600MHz CPMG spectroscopy on whole blood and will subsequently perform cross-validated OPLS-DA on 0.01ppm spectral buckets in an attempt to build a clinically-useful classifier. Impact: Patients with resected AJCC stage IIB/C and III cutaneous melanoma are at high risk of recurrent disease with poor prognosis. An inexpensive blood biopsy able to predict those with distant metastatic disease would guide clinical decision making and save lives.