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Soo Park, MD
Soo Park, MD
Posted: Tuesday, January 14, 2025
The UVA Cancer Center’s melanoma trial aims to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of focused sound waves for augmenting the benefits of immunotherapy combined with surgical removal of cancerous tumors in patients with advanced melanoma. Lynn T. Dengel, MD, of UVA Health, Charlottesville, Virginia, and colleagues will investigate how the tumor’s “microenvironment” changes and how the body’s immune system responds to the treatment to sound waves.
“We know that combining immune therapies improves response rates in our patients, and we seek novel therapies, such as focused ultrasound, as a mechanism of altering the immune response within the tumor,” said Dr. Dengel in an institutional press release.
The study will enroll 11 participants who are receiving a PD-1 inhibitor as part of their treatment plan. Patients will receive a two-part treatment. First, they will receive a focused ultrasound ablation, using focused ultrasound with an ultrasound-guided device to noninvasively heat and destroy part of the tumor. Second, they will receive an injection into their tumor of a stabilized double-stranded RNA viral mimic and immunomodulator, to activate the immune system before undergoing surgery to remove the tumor.
The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the effect of the focused soundwaves, and the investigators plan to assess the pattern of ablation and the changes to the tumor’s immune environment. The trial will help researchers to understand the effect of the potential new combination immune therapy.
“This information is vital to exploring the potential of focused ultrasound in advanced melanoma and other solid tumors,” said Dr. Dengel.
For more information on enrolling adults with advanced melanoma who are receiving immunotherapy and planning to have surgery onto this trial, contact Dr. Dengel, principal investigator of this study, at ltd5b@virginia.edu.
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