Melanoma's New Frontier: Exploring the Latest Advances in Blood-Based Biomarkers for Melanoma

Abstract

Melanoma is one of the most malignant cancers, and the global incidence of cutaneous melanoma is increasing. While melanomas are highly prone to metastasize if diagnosed late, early detection and treatment significantly reduce the risk of mortality. Identifying patients at higher risk of metastasis, who might benefit from early adjuvant therapies, is particularly important, especially with the advent of new melanoma treatments. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop additional prognostic biomarkers for melanoma to improve early stratification of patients and accurately identify high-risk subgroups, ultimately enabling more effective personalized treatments. Recent advances in melanoma therapy, including targeted treatments and immunotherapy, have underscored the importance of biomarkers in determining prognosis and predicting treatment response. The clinical application of these markers holds the potential for significant advancements in melanoma management. Various tumor-derived genetic, proteomic, and cellular components are continuously released into the bloodstream of cancer patients. These molecules, including circulating tumor DNA and RNA, proteins, tumor cells, and immune cells, are emerging as practical and precise liquid biomarkers for cancer. In the current era of effective molecular-targeted therapies and immunotherapies, there is an urgent need to integrate these circulating biomarkers into clinical practice to facilitate personalized treatment. This review highlights recent discoveries in circulating melanoma biomarkers, explores the challenges and potentials of emerging technologies for liquid biomarker discovery, and discusses future directions in melanoma biomarker research.

Keywords: LDH; S100B; biomarkers; cell-free DNA; cell-free RNA; circulating tumor DNA; circulating tumor cells; liquid biopsy; melanoma; tumor-educated platelets.

Figure 1

Peripheral blood centrifugation by density gradient with components of each layer. Abbreviations: cfDNA: cell-free DNA; cfRNA: cell-free RNA. Created in BioRender. Mokos, M. (2024) https://BioRender.com/x74l463.