Evaluation of Hypoxia in Primary Melanoma

This study aims to prospectively validate previous findings. Having found that deregulated tumor cell metabolism and resultant intra-tumoral hypoxia (ITH) are linked to clinical outcomes in patients with advanced stage melanoma, it was next sought to understand whether hypoxia, utilized as a surrogate of dysregulated metabolism, has significance in patients with earlier stage melanoma. This was done by utilizing banked samples from melanoma patients. Patients with early-stage melanoma who had undergone wide local excision (WLE) and sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) were eligible, involving fifty patients who had a positive SLN, and 50 patients who had a negative SLN. Utilizing novel Vectra panels developed by the Najjar lab, intra-nodal hypoxia was evaluated, as measured by carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX), it was fund that when controlling for tumor present in the SLN, intranodal hypoxia as measured by CAIX IHC is associated with worse PFS. This suggests that tumors may be utilizing deregulated metabolism as a means of propagating themselves to the next station of metastasis.