Molecules in urine allow doctors to monitor skin cancer
Rapid, inexpensive and non-invasive technique can track malignant
melanoma progression or treatment response

Date:
August 11, 2020
Source:
De Gruyter
Summary:
What if you could simply provide a urine sample rather than
undergo a painful surgical procedure to find out if your cancer
was responding to treatment? It may seem too good to be true,
but researchers have identified fluorescent molecules in urine
that may allow patients with malignant melanoma to do just that.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
What if you could simply provide a urine sample rather than undergo a
painful surgical procedure to find out if your cancer was responding
to treatment? It may seem too good to be true, but researchers at
Pavol Jozef Safa'rik University in Kosice, Slovakia, have identified fluorescent molecules in urine that may allow patients with malignant
melanoma to do just that.


========================================================================== Tracking cancer progression is important as it allows doctors to see
if someone is responding to treatment. At present, malignant melanoma
patients require invasive biopsies to diagnose and track the progression
of their cancer. Using this new approach, doctors could ask patients to
provide a urine sample instead, and then fluorescent molecules in the
sample could reveal disease progression rapidly and inexpensively.

The research article, "Fluorescence biomarkers of malignant melanoma
detectable in urine," has been published in De Gruyter's open access
journal Open Chemistry. It describes a group of fluorescent molecules --
easily detectable in urine -- which correlate with melanoma progression, creating new possibilities for monitoring the disease.

This technique is badly needed as malignant melanoma is particularly challenging to treat and monitor. This skin cancer is highly aggressive
and frequently spreads to other sites in the body so monitoring its
progression is very important. However, current techniques mean that
patients have to undergo invasive surgery to remove tissue samples and
then lab technicians must perform expensive and time-consuming analysis of these samples. Unfortunately, patients may avoid getting timely diagnosis
and treatment as they fear these invasive procedures.

These issues prompted Dr. Ivana Spakova' and colleagues to look for an alternative. They focused on specific fluorescent molecules that cancer
cells produce during metabolic processes involved in their growth and progression, and which end up in urine.

The researchers analyzed urine samples from patients with malignant
melanoma and healthy controls using fluorescence spectroscopy, a simple
and inexpensive detection method, to see if there were any differences in levels of the fluorescent markers. They also performed genetic analysis
for the same patients to examine genes involved in melanoma progression.

The urine samples from the malignant melanoma patients contained different levels of the metabolism-linked fluorescent markers compared with those
from healthy controls. Strikingly, the levels of the fluorescent molecules
in the urine correlated with the stage of melanoma and the expression
of genes that are linked to melanoma progression, suggesting that the
molecules have significant potential as biomarkers.

"Our results show that we can successfully use urine, a simply and non- invasively collected biological material, to determine the progression
and treatment response of malignant melanoma," said Spakova'. "The
results highlight the potential of 'waste metabolites' in monitoring
disease. This method is a user friendly and straightforward technique
which could be performed using standard laboratory equipment."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by De_Gruyter. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ivana Spakova', Katari'na Dubayova', Vladimi'ra Nagyova', Ma'ria
Marekova'. Fluorescence biomarkers of malignant melanoma
detectable in urine. Open Chemistry, 2020; 18 (1): 898 DOI:
10.1515/chem-2020-0143 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811120057.htm

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