A new study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research shows that a specific type of cells called C D30-positive T cells, in lymph nodes of Melanoma patients meant that those patients were more likely to have their diseases progress.

Staff Scientist at Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori Monica Rodolfo, PhD and a team of scientists in Milan conducted the exploratory study, designed to investigate the lymph nodes closest to the tumor called sentinel nodes from 42 melanoma patients with different stages of disease aggressiveness, and performed genetic analyses.

“Using the study of genetic profiles, we found that the sentinel node contains information useful to foresee whether or not a patient with melanoma will have an aggressive cancer,” Dr. Monica Rodolfo said.

These genetic profile analyses aimed to identify a molecular “signature” that could predict which patients are at high risk for tumor recurrence.

To do this, they analyzed immune cells called lymphocytes, which include T cells, from the sentinel lymph nodes of patients whose tumors recurred or had not recurred at five years after surgical removal of the primary tumor.

In addition, the researchers collected blood samples from 25 patients with stage three and stage four melanoma and compared them with blood collected from age- and gender-matched, healthy donors.

Rodolfo and colleagues found that the sentinel lymph nodes of patients whose melanomas recurred after five years had immune cells with dysregulated genes that were involved in processes such as cell survival, cell proliferation, and metabolism.

Upon further validation, they found that T cells bearing the marker CD30 were upregulated in sentinel nodes of melanomas that recurred at five years, as well as in patients with advanced disease.

“We hypothesize that CD30 may become a novel target for treatments aimed at restoring effective antitumor immune responses in melanoma patients,” Dr. Rodolfo said. “Considering that drugs directed against this molecule have recently been developed to treat lymphoma, this hypothesis might be easily tested in the near future.”