Latest / The Eye Believe Podcast / Standardizing MUM Surveillance: COOG Panel Discussion | The Eye Believe Podcast
Transcript
- 0:03hey everyone
- 0:03welcome to another episode of the Eye Believe Podcast
- 0:06and this one is extra special
- 0:07because we are bringing you some very cutting edge
- 0:10updated information from some amazing doctors
- 0:13so i'm gonna have them introduce themselves
- 0:15and then we're gonna get into what we're talking about
- 0:17hi my name is Dr. Juan Alban
- 0:19i'm a chief hematology oncology fellow
- 0:21at Northwestern University
- 0:22hi i'm Dr. Sunandana Chandra
- 0:25i'm a melanoma medical oncologist at Northwestern
- 0:28i'm Dr. Scott Walter i'm a ocular oncologist in Hartford
- 0:32Connecticut hello
- 0:33i'm Dr. Jose Lutzky i'm a medical oncologist
- 0:36specializing in melanoma at the University of Miami
- 0:39Sylvester Cancer Center hi
- 0:41i'm Dr. Meredith McKean i'm a medical oncologist uh
- 0:43based here in Nashville uh
- 0:45with Sarah Cannon Research Institute
- 0:47yeah hi
- 0:47i'm Dr. Sanjay Chandrasekaran
- 0:48and i'm a medical oncologist at UT Southwestern
- 0:51in Dallas, Texas
- 0:53welcome everybody
- 0:53and thank you so much for being here
- 0:55this means a lot to patients caregivers
- 0:58everyone that's experienced ocular melanoma
- 1:00that you guys are putting so much effort and dedication
- 1:03into not only taking care of patients
- 1:06but trying to help find a cure
- 1:07so we're very appreciative of your time and your
- 1:09everything you're doing but also
- 1:11that you're taking time out of your day
- 1:13to be here with us and explain this to patients
- 1:15this is huge that you're doing this
- 1:17and we're very very grateful
- 1:19so would you guys like to give a little background
- 1:23on what COOG is
- 1:24because some people listening right now might be like
- 1:27oh i've never heard of COOG
- 1:29yeah so
- 1:30the COOG
- 1:30stands for the Collaborative Ocular Oncology Group
- 1:34uh this started off as kind of
- 1:36a small group of ocular oncologists
- 1:39who were uh
- 1:40you know scientifically uh
- 1:43curious and aligned with the work of uh
- 1:45Dr. Bill Harbour J. William Harbour
- 1:49who is known for developing
- 1:51the gene expression profiling test
- 1:53which has now kind of become widely used
- 1:56as a standard of care in the united states
- 1:59for prognostication in uveal melanoma
- 2:01and so you know
- 2:02Bill's work kind of developed this test and then uh
- 2:05led to prospective validation of the test uh
- 2:09through uh
- 2:10a collaboration between multiple centers
- 2:12and uh over the
- 2:13the subsequent years that's kind of evolved into um
- 2:16additional testing modalities
- 2:18so probably heard about prame expression
- 2:21and more recently the uh
- 2:24next generation sequencing
- 2:26for uveal melanoma associated mutations
- 2:28and so the group has grown
- 2:30both in terms of
- 2:31the number of affiliated ocular oncologists and
- 2:35and the
- 2:36the number of tests that we've validated prospectively
- 2:39through this venture and then over the past
- 2:41you know four or five years
- 2:43we started uh expanding our meeting to invite uh
- 2:48medical oncologists uh
- 2:49many of the uh
- 2:51you know premier ocular oncologists in our group
- 2:53are affiliated with
- 2:54really top notch medical oncologists
- 2:57and we wanted to bring them into the fold
- 2:58to learn from them more about
- 3:00you know what happens after we treat the eye
- 3:02melanoma and
- 3:04you know how we can make a difference in terms of um
- 3:07uh metastatic disease cause
- 3:08ultimately that's really what
- 3:10you know we care most about
- 3:11and so you know
- 3:13over the past several years
- 3:14we've had these very productive discussions
- 3:16at the meeting and um
- 3:18i think you know
- 3:19Bill Harbour and some of the other leaders in the group
- 3:21kind of came up with the idea
- 3:23of putting together a panel
- 3:27to come up with some consensus guidelines
- 3:29around meta saga surveillance
- 3:31so Juan kind of took the lead on this project
- 3:34and i'll kind of handed over to him
- 3:36to explain the methodology and
- 3:38and who all was included in this consensus group
- 3:42excellent
- 3:43so this project was a fairly large
- 3:45it spanned about one year
- 3:47um
- 3:48we invited forty nine experts from around the country
- 3:51um so experts who were medical oncologist
- 3:53ocular oncologist surgical oncologist and radiologist
- 3:57um to participate in this project
- 4:00the delphi uh method
- 4:02it's a method
- 4:02that was developed in the nineteen fifties initially uh
- 4:05and it's a technique to achieve consensus
- 4:08among a group of experts
- 4:10it involves multiple rounds of questionnaires
- 4:13where experts anonymously
- 4:15provide their opinions and feedback
- 4:18after each round
- 4:19experts are provided a summary of responses
- 4:22and then are invited into a debriefing session
- 4:25so that we can have all the experts
- 4:27discuss the results of each questionnaire
- 4:29and revise our views
- 4:31we ultimately did this three separate times
- 4:34across the year uh
- 4:36which ultimately gave us the consensus document
- 4:39that has recently been published
- 4:41so Juan
- 4:42you make a great point and
- 4:44and also let's not forget
- 4:45that this was actually a multinational effort
- 4:49because our colleagues in Canada were also able to join
- 4:53you know what led to this endeavor was the recognition
- 4:57at one of our COOG meetings
- 4:59or actually multiple meetings
- 5:01that we were all surveilling our patients
- 5:05in various ways
- 5:08using different types of imaging methods or modalities
- 5:12different types of frequencies
- 5:15and we realized very quickly
- 5:17that it behooves our patients
- 5:21and the field in general
- 5:22to try to develop some sort of consensus
- 5:26to help guide us and our colleagues
- 5:29and also to give our patients
- 5:30a sense of how best to manage their surveillance
- 5:36now of course
- 5:37the problem is that there's not a lot of evidence
- 5:40behind these guidelines
- 5:42it's a mix of data that Scott had alluded to
- 5:48the gene expression profile data
- 5:49the prame data
- 5:50that can help us prognosticate someone's survival
- 5:55who has uveal melanoma and
- 5:57it was also a combination of everyone's expert opinion
- 6:01from all these different multidisciplinary groups
- 6:05to come up with some sort of consensus
- 6:08that we can all then follow um
- 6:11to the best of our ability
- 6:14i might also add that for a long time
- 6:18there was a lot of questioning on
- 6:20why do we need to do this
- 6:22why do we even have to do imaging
- 6:25or why do we have to follow patients
- 6:27because we don't have any treatment for them
- 6:30but that has changed currently
- 6:32we are living in one of the most productive periods
- 6:36scientifically in understanding melanoma
- 6:40uveal melanoma in particular
- 6:43there's a lot of research there
- 6:44a lot of new potential treatments that
- 6:48and some that have already been proven to be beneficial
- 6:51so in this current environment
- 6:53it's very important to know
- 6:56who is at high risk of recurring
- 6:59and who is not so i think that also uh
- 7:02is prompted us to feel the urgency
- 7:06of trying to find a framework
- 7:08where we can all speak the same language
- 7:11i think that's fantastic so
- 7:12you all have gotten together
- 7:14and published a paper with the guidelines
- 7:18and it is called
- 7:19the Metastatic Uveal Melanoma Surveillance
- 7:21A Delphi Panel Consensus
- 7:24can you explain to us what a delphi method is
- 7:27and why you used it
- 7:30most definitely so the delphi method
- 7:33it's it's a wonderful method to utilize
- 7:35when there isn't a clear um
- 7:38right answer and you're trying to answer the question
- 7:41with many different viewpoints
- 7:43so in this situation as jose just mentioned
- 7:48everyone's doing things a little bit differently
- 7:50and everyone's got their own reasonings
- 7:53and so
- 7:53we wanted to sit down and create an iterative process
- 7:58or format
- 7:59in which we could tease out these differences uh
- 8:02in practice patterns
- 8:04and try to actually standardize those practice patterns
- 8:07across the board uh
- 8:08in the us and canada so the stealthy method
- 8:12this technique to achieve consensus
- 8:14it's really just an iterative um
- 8:17multiple rounds of questionnaires
- 8:20so we create a questionnaire with a um
- 8:25with numerous different recommendations
- 8:28and we pass them on to our panelists
- 8:31and we have them rate from one to nine
- 8:34what degree
- 8:35they agreed with the statement in front of them
- 8:39based on those scores we then went back
- 8:44and discussed each round of the questionaires
- 8:47with our panelist so that everyone could understand
- 8:51what specific recommendations were popular
- 8:54what recommendations were unpopular
- 8:56and how we could tweak them to improve them
- 9:00so that we could get the largest amount of members
- 9:04on board with the set recommendations
- 9:07that were ultimately published
- 9:09so this method
- 9:11it really allowed us to go back to the drawing board
- 9:14numerous times
- 9:15with the feedback from a very diverse group of experts
- 9:20and ultimately craft very descriptive statement
- 9:24recommendations for each class of patients
- 9:27the intermediate risk and the high risk patients
- 9:31so we dive into not just the frequency of surveillance
- 9:35but also the techniques
- 9:36so what imaging modalities should be utilized
- 9:40if and when blood testing should be utilized
- 9:44and if and when pet ct should be utilized
- 9:47i'll just jump in there you know
- 9:49i'm you know
- 9:49kind of a private practice ocular oncologist
- 9:52out in the community setting
- 9:53and so you know
- 9:54my patients don't necessarily
- 9:56all have the benefit of going to a world expert
- 10:00a medical oncologist who specializes in uveal melanoma
- 10:03right they're
- 10:04they're more likely to see a
- 10:05a general medical oncologist or
- 10:08you know maybe a
- 10:09if they're lucky a
- 10:10a medical oncologist
- 10:11that specializes in cutaneous melanoma um
- 10:14but they're less familiar with
- 10:16with uveal melanoma surveillance
- 10:18and so there's a lot of heterogeneity out there
- 10:21you know even
- 10:22you know we're talking amongst the experts in the group
- 10:26you know there was disagreement
- 10:27but when you get out to the community
- 10:29ocular oncologist there's
- 10:31or sorry
- 10:32medical oncologist there's even more variability
- 10:34in how surveillance is being done and
- 10:36and so one of the things that
- 10:38you know i think this has helped with is
- 10:40you know providing
- 10:41sort of
- 10:42clear guidelines that we can send to a community uh
- 10:46oncologist to help
- 10:47allow them to do this surveillance
- 10:49in a way that is in alignment with the uh
- 10:52world experts you know
- 10:54that that join the panel
- 10:55and do you feel like because uveal melanoma is so rare
- 11:00that that makes it more challenging
- 11:02absolutely because
- 11:03most medical oncologists
- 11:04have probably never seen a case of uveal melanoma
- 11:07in their careers you know
- 11:08they kind of get siloed into the more common cancers
- 11:11and you know
- 11:13unless they're in a major center
- 11:14where these patients are concentrated
- 11:16they're unlikely to have managed this disease in
- 11:20in terms of surveillance or
- 11:21you know the
- 11:22the management of active
- 11:23metastatic disease once it occurs
- 11:27another potential advantage of this and
- 11:29and a very practical one is that for
- 11:32and i would ask my colleagues to
- 11:34to give their input here is is uh
- 11:37in terms of getting insurance approval
- 11:40for some of the test
- 11:42some some
- 11:43and it's very inconsistent there
- 11:45some insurance companies will approve
- 11:48what we think
- 11:49is the best imaging modality for the patient
- 11:52while others will not so
- 11:54we're hoping if we can create this framework there
- 11:57that's published there and
- 11:59you know it has the agreement of forty plus uh
- 12:02physicians that specialize in the field
- 12:06it would make it easier for us to argue
- 12:08with these insurance companies
- 12:09but i don't know what Meredith or Sanjay
- 12:13have to say about that
- 12:16yeah i think not only is it important for um
- 12:20you know other colleagues
- 12:21medical oncologists um
- 12:23patients but also insurance companies
- 12:25to educate all of them on the differences
- 12:27between cutaneous and uveal melanoma
- 12:29right and how um
- 12:30how we determine high risk cutaneous melanoma
- 12:34is very different than uveal melanoma
- 12:36how we follow it's very different
- 12:37and so
- 12:38i think the more we can highlight those differences
- 12:41the more we can um
- 12:43really advocate for our patients and be able to say
- 12:46look we know the risk of recurrence in the liver is the
- 12:50you know the most concerning location
- 12:52and so this is why we need to follow patients with um
- 12:57intensive monitoring in the liver um
- 12:59for example with mri of the liver
- 13:02triple phase ct
- 13:04and especially for the patients that
- 13:06with the risk prognostic uh
- 13:08scores that we have now
- 13:09we know which patients are at higher risk
- 13:11and which ones
- 13:12we need to be more intensive in our screenings
- 13:14versus patients that are low risk
- 13:16that we can say you know
- 13:18you don't need that same level of intensity
- 13:21in your follow up traditionally
- 13:23or historically i should say
- 13:25uveal melanoma was more of a clinical diagnosis
- 13:29but yet over the past few years
- 13:31we have some very clear and clean data
- 13:35showing us that perhaps if we had some more
- 13:39um biopsies being done
- 13:42and we had some tissue to actually analyze
- 13:44we could really prognosticate people who are at low
- 13:49medium and high risk or what we call low
- 13:52intermediate or high risk
- 13:54so also one of my hopes with this
- 13:58you know um
- 13:59consensus document um
- 14:01is that it will encourage many of our colleagues
- 14:04who are around the uh uh
- 14:06country to actually uh
- 14:08consider doing a biopsy
- 14:10because that actually would change surveillance and
- 14:13and it can have quite a significant impact
- 14:16on whether someone's low risk or high risk
- 14:19one of the nice things about the way the delphi is
- 14:22is presented and and bearing in mind we
- 14:24we have national guidelines for uveal melanoma
- 14:27and as there
- 14:28there are committees that sit down and review this
- 14:31but i think for practicing oncologists that are
- 14:34that are working through national guidelines it
- 14:36it's nice to have in a way
- 14:38something that you can read
- 14:39that's a conversation amongst physicians
- 14:41who are making these decisions
- 14:43and recommending how to make those decisions
- 14:45and that's why as
- 14:47as the way the delphi uh
- 14:49publication is presented
- 14:50it kind of works through these scenarios to finally say
- 14:52hey
- 14:52this is how the group achieved these recommendations
- 14:56so it
- 14:57it's less of an ingredients list and more of a recipe
- 15:00to to allow someone to work through
- 15:02work through the scenario
- 15:03and i think that that's why it's
- 15:05it's very complimentary to what exists and
- 15:08and certainly
- 15:10i think offers context to both providers and patients
- 15:14and payers and family members
- 15:16as to why we're doing what we're doing
- 15:18and the decisions are being made
- 15:20i think that's amazing and so needed
- 15:23Dr. McKean can you walk us through the pattern
- 15:25of metastatic spread yeah
- 15:27so unlike um
- 15:29other cancers where we can check a lymph node
- 15:32say at the time of diagnosis
- 15:34and uveal melanoma
- 15:35we're limited to features of the primary tumor
- 15:39to understand risk factors and
- 15:41and the and the biopsy um
- 15:43because uveal melanoma
- 15:44is more likely to spread through the blood
- 15:46and so um
- 15:48because of this
- 15:49the biggest concern is that this cancer can um
- 15:53return in the liver and often times
- 15:57patients don't have any symptoms
- 15:59their labs may be normal um
- 16:02if blood work is checked and so um
- 16:04this is why we need intensive monitoring of the liver
- 16:08other locations that uveal melanoma can um
- 16:11recur is places like the lungs bone
- 16:15other places in the abdomen
- 16:16and so we need comprehensive imaging
- 16:19but it really does center on good imaging of the liver
- 16:23um in addition to these other locations
- 16:26uveal melanoma as a rare disease
- 16:28we haven't had you know
- 16:30randomized trials
- 16:31to be able to look at different screening mechanisms
- 16:35and so a lot of this
- 16:36is based on our clinical care of patients
- 16:39and what we've seen as the best test
- 16:42to be able to detect metastatic disease
- 16:44one of the great tools that we have now
- 16:46is this gene expression profiling and prame
- 16:49which we're using uh
- 16:51clinically to help uh
- 16:52estimate the likelihood
- 16:54of a metastatic disease progression
- 16:56so at the time of a tumor diagnosis
- 16:59an ocular oncologist
- 17:01often will perform a biopsy of the tumor
- 17:04and send uh
- 17:05some genetic material for uh
- 17:07gene expression profiling
- 17:09and that comes back with a result of either class one
- 17:12or class two uh
- 17:14in addition uh
- 17:15we now also do prame expression profiling
- 17:18on the same specimen
- 17:19so that further subdivides patients into class one
- 17:23prame negative which is the lowest risk subgroup
- 17:26those patients have a less than five percent risk
- 17:30of developing metastatic disease progression
- 17:32over five years
- 17:34the second uh
- 17:35group is class one prame positive
- 17:38so these patients still have a relatively low risk
- 17:41of metastatic disease progression
- 17:43but it's about twenty percent of patients
- 17:46who will develop metastatic disease
- 17:47over the course of five years
- 17:49and the uh
- 17:50average time to develop metastasis in this population
- 17:54is about three years from diagnosis
- 17:56then we get into the class two tumors
- 17:58unfortunately class two tumors
- 18:00have a much higher likelihood of metastasizing
- 18:03it's around fifty percent of these patients
- 18:05will go on to develop metastatic disease
- 18:08and if we subdivide the class two population
- 18:11into the prame negative
- 18:12versus prame positive subpopulations
- 18:15there's a slightly lower risk of disease progression
- 18:18in class two prame negative
- 18:20versus the higher rate of disease progression
- 18:23in class two prame positive
- 18:25so um
- 18:26basically
- 18:27the patients who are class two prame positive
- 18:29are our highest risk group
- 18:30they have a you know
- 18:32roughly sixty percent chance
- 18:34of developing metastatic disease within five years
- 18:37and about half of the patients
- 18:38who will develop metastatic disease
- 18:40will do so within a year and a half of diagnosis
- 18:43so the latency to metastasis is also shorter
- 18:46in the class two prame positive subgroup
- 18:49in the class two prame negative subgroup
- 18:53it's a little under fifty percent of patients
- 18:55who will develop metastatic disease
- 18:57and the the latency is a little longer
- 18:59so the average time to developing metastatic disease
- 19:01is about two years from diagnosis
- 19:04so this
- 19:05the availability of this really detailed algorithm for
- 19:09uh determining metastatic risk
- 19:11has allowed us to develop
- 19:14more personalized surveillance guidelines
- 19:16for patients in different risk categories
- 19:18and that's really uh
- 19:20what this consensus is all about
- 19:22i think it's interesting to notice also
- 19:24that for some of these subgroups
- 19:26that don't have a very high recurrence rate
- 19:30some of these patients may recur late uh
- 19:34sometimes ten years later
- 19:36so recognizing this we included uh
- 19:40long term surveillance in
- 19:42in these guidelines that
- 19:44the main reason why we wanna know
- 19:46who is going to recur and when
- 19:49is because we may have the opportunity to intervene
- 19:53to prevent those recurrences
- 19:54and there are we're beginning to see now
- 19:58new clinical trials that
- 20:00trying to prevent or delay recurrence
- 20:03in those very high risk cases
- 20:05so i think at this point
- 20:07we can discuss a little bit of our findings
- 20:10and the consensus recommendations
- 20:13so if we break down our recommendations
- 20:15based on the risk classification
- 20:17let's quickly revisit what that risk classification is
- 20:20so for the intermediate risk
- 20:22these are patients who are class one
- 20:23by gene expression profile
- 20:25in prame positive or Disomy 3
- 20:28with gain of chromosome 8q
- 20:30or SF3B1 mutation
- 20:33or if we use the AJCC classification
- 20:37this would be a T2 or T3 tumor
- 20:42for these patients we recommend that they undergo
- 20:45screening for metastatic disease
- 20:46with a frequency of every three to six months
- 20:48for five years
- 20:49and thereafter annually for at least ten years
- 20:52from diagnosis
- 20:53we recommend that they undergo cross sectional imaging
- 20:57meaning ct abdomen or mri abdomen
- 21:01to surveil for metastatic disease
- 21:03specifically in the liver
- 21:06we do note that we have a preference towards contrast
- 21:09enhanced mri abdomen over ct abdomen
- 21:13and also over hepatic ultrasound
- 21:17with regards to surveillance of the thorax
- 21:20or the chest
- 21:20we recommend that patients undergo a ct of the chest
- 21:24which is combined with this hepatic imaging
- 21:26but we don't dictate the specific frequency
- 21:30or the ct of the chest
- 21:32meaning that patients can undergo ct chest
- 21:35um at a reduced frequency
- 21:36in comparison to the abdominal imaging
- 21:40now with regards to the high risk group
- 21:43the high risk patients are those who are class two
- 21:46by gene expression profile
- 21:48regardless of their prame
- 21:51meaning prame positive or prame negative
- 21:54they can also fall into this high risk group
- 21:56if they have monosomy 3
- 21:58regardless of chromosome a q
- 22:01have a Bap1 mutation or are T4 by AJCC
- 22:07for these patients we recommend an increased frequency
- 22:10we want them to undergo metastatic disease surveillance
- 22:15with a minimum frequency of every three to six months
- 22:17for years one through five
- 22:19then
- 22:19every six to twelve months for years six through ten
- 22:22and then surveillance imaging beyond ten years
- 22:25can be considered
- 22:27for these patients
- 22:28we similarly recommend the use of contrast
- 22:30enhanced ct abdomen or mri
- 22:33over the use of a hepatic ultrasound
- 22:36for these patients
- 22:37we also recommend the use of a ct chest
- 22:39which can be combined with hepatic imaging
- 22:41for surveillance of metastatic disease in the thorax
- 22:45although
- 22:45this can also be performed at a reduced frequency
- 22:49lastly we similarly note
- 22:50that we have a preference towards mri of the abdomen
- 22:53over ct abdomen in this high risk population
- 22:57if we take a step away from our risk classifications
- 23:00we did also provide some general guidelines
- 23:03regardless of the risk classes
- 23:05with regards to pet ct's
- 23:07we did not feel that they were reliable enough
- 23:10in picking up
- 23:12the small amount of metastasis to the liver
- 23:16and so as a result
- 23:16we recommend the use of mri or ct abdomen in its place
- 23:21with regards to uh
- 23:22hepatic ultrasound or ultrasound of the liver
- 23:25unfortunately
- 23:26this tends to be a very technically difficult exam
- 23:30and is very much dependent
- 23:32on the expertise of the ultrasonographer
- 23:36and so as a result
- 23:37we feel that there's too much variability
- 23:39in that test's capacity to pick up metastatic disease
- 23:43so similarly we recommend the use of mri or ct
- 23:46in place of hepatic unltrasound
- 23:49and lastly we did not feel that the routine blood work
- 23:54uh necessarily added much uh
- 23:57in ways of picking up uh
- 23:59metastatic disease meaning
- 24:01it is more often than not
- 24:04that these tests
- 24:05do not provide us any additional information uh
- 24:08when done on a routine basis
- 24:11so i think one thing that's important to realize
- 24:13and for our patients to understand
- 24:16is not every anatomic part of the body
- 24:21can be imaged identically compared to another part
- 24:24so for example
- 24:26for the abdomen and pelvis
- 24:27we often use contrast to really help delineate
- 24:32you know small structures
- 24:33and gives us a lot of detail
- 24:35it's highly sensitive highly specific however
- 24:38for example for the lungs
- 24:40for the chest especially
- 24:42if we're not necessarily concerned about lymph
- 24:44nodal involvement we actually don't need contrast
- 24:47so those are just examples of
- 24:49we just have to be very thoughtful
- 24:51when we're ordering these different imaging tests
- 24:54to make sure that we A. order the best test possible
- 24:58to give us the most information and
- 25:00and B. spare our patients additional tests
- 25:03that may not be that much more meaningful
- 25:06Juan
- 25:06you would mention prognostic factors that we look at
- 25:08other than just gene expression profile
- 25:10you know you mentioned prame
- 25:12you mentioned chromosomal analysis
- 25:14the genetics of the tumor
- 25:16the tumor size i think it bears worth repeating
- 25:20that having it be a variety of prognostic factors
- 25:25and have that being included in this document
- 25:27we hope will allow more people to be able to use it
- 25:32because we acknowledge that
- 25:34not everyone has access to gene expression profiling
- 25:37different centers may have different protocols
- 25:39when trying to prognosticate the tumors
- 25:41so i think this document
- 25:43allows for multiple variables to be taken into account
- 25:48and then finally
- 25:49what sets uveal melanoma apart from many other cancers
- 25:52is that it can have a long latency in some um
- 25:57scenarios
- 25:58and so extending our scan frequency when appropriate
- 26:03i think will also help keep our patients safe
- 26:07with respect to helping us detect recurrences
- 26:12i think another
- 26:13an interesting finding from this was it did
- 26:16i think
- 26:17deescalate um
- 26:20surveillance imaging for some patients
- 26:22so the analysis showed that uh
- 26:24while the national guidelines
- 26:26for patients that are class 1 B
- 26:29by GEP
- 26:31but don't have prame expression
- 26:32were initially thought to be
- 26:34an intermediate risk category with
- 26:36with a higher risk for developing disease
- 26:39the based purely off of the the
- 26:42the collaborative oncology group report number two
- 26:46using that data and using a consensus statement
- 26:49we can i think
- 26:49confidently say hey
- 26:51those those are patients
- 26:52where we may not need to scan as frequently
- 26:54that if it's class 1B prame negative
- 26:57that's actually a low risk population
- 27:00that a consensus group feels
- 27:01that this is a space where we could move from a
- 27:04a six month interval maybe even
- 27:07even deescalating well
- 27:09again the consensus group at least
- 27:11didn't completely finalize
- 27:13what low risk patients should ideally um
- 27:17be receiving in terms of scans
- 27:19i think it's it's nice for patients to understand hey
- 27:22maybe my risk is a little bit better
- 27:24maybe i'm i
- 27:25i have a better chance of beating this
- 27:28and not developing recurrence of my melanoma
- 27:32you know one thing that comes up often in clinic is so
- 27:35the time toxicity and the financial toxicity
- 27:38of all the testing that we do
- 27:40so for a lot of our patients at northwestern
- 27:42they're traveling from really
- 27:44quite far away to see us in the clinic
- 27:47and so if we are recommending imaging
- 27:51you know that is an additional trip
- 27:53often to the downtown center
- 27:55and so now being able to point to an expert consensus
- 28:00and feel very confident in the recommendations
- 28:02that we're providing to patients
- 28:05makes the discussions a lot easier for us in the clinic
- 28:08not just to provide support
- 28:10but also to counsel patients
- 28:11if they're spending hours or days
- 28:14performing the tests that we're asking of them
- 28:17then i think
- 28:17it's really important
- 28:18that we have the best data out there
- 28:21to really guide those decisions
- 28:22and so i'm very glad that now through this effort
- 28:25we can really provide those recommendations
- 28:28and those frequencies with very high confidence
- 28:32can i ask you as a wrap up question
- 28:34what's next for COOG
- 28:36i think one i mean
- 28:37one of the questions that persists is
- 28:40just how long do we continue to surveil patients
- 28:43because the the goal of the um
- 28:46the COOG data and how to implement that
- 28:48as we discussed is
- 28:49to not only understand
- 28:50which patients to intensify screening
- 28:52but also which patients to deintensify
- 28:54and so right now the consensus was
- 28:58that it really should be up to the individual
- 29:01the provider high risk patients
- 29:03we've started to give guidelines up to ten years
- 29:06but i i see
- 29:08that is one of the issues
- 29:09that i hope that we are able to address
- 29:12even better in the future
- 29:14once we have longer follow up of these patients that um
- 29:17have been participating in the COOG data
- 29:19that makes a lot of sense
- 29:21is there anything else you guys want to touch before we
- 29:23wrap up so i think this effort really highlights how
- 29:28when a group of experts come together and
- 29:31and identify an unmet need
- 29:33in this case
- 29:35some further guidance for how to surveil our patients
- 29:39based on the data that we do have available
- 29:42that you can achieve the the objective
- 29:45and so you know i
- 29:46i hope that this document
- 29:48this consensus guideline is actually helpful
- 29:51not only to our colleagues around the country
- 29:53but also most importantly
- 29:55for our patients another
- 29:57benefit of this is that if
- 30:00if it gets adopted by other medical oncologists
- 30:04particularly
- 30:04the people that are not that familiar with uveal melanoma
- 30:07it will create a database
- 30:10that we can do real world assessments
- 30:15in a much more a reliable way
- 30:17because right now if you want to see in the real world
- 30:21how our patients are doing
- 30:23they got a specific treatment
- 30:24for example
- 30:25if people are being assessed at different intervals
- 30:28different types of imaging
- 30:31it may not be very reliable
- 30:33and that's why
- 30:35standardization of monitoring of patients is important
- 30:39and i think ultimately you know
- 30:41we wanna go back to thanking patients right
- 30:43if um
- 30:44it was because patients have all signed up to say yes
- 30:48i wanna participate in the COOG
- 30:51you know
- 30:51study and please um
- 30:54use my data to help other patients
- 30:56that we now have all this information
- 30:58that we can look back and try to develop
- 31:00these guidelines and patients were signing up for this
- 31:04well before as Dr. Lutzky said
- 31:06well before we had any effective treatments um
- 31:09but it was you know
- 31:11that those those patients that um
- 31:14donated their time effort and allowed us to
- 31:18to follow them and to look at their data
- 31:20that we now have this really robust data set
- 31:23that helps inform um
- 31:25surveillance patterns helps us identify
- 31:27hopefully high risk patients for adjuvant trials
- 31:30it's always interesting at patients in clinic if they
- 31:33you know we get to the five year mark and they say
- 31:35what do we do and i say
- 31:36well thanks to you
- 31:37we're getting more more information and a better idea
- 31:40and you know
- 31:41they say oh what what
- 31:41what am i participating in
- 31:43cause i know at time diagnosis it's
- 31:45it's can be very overwhelming
- 31:47and it's a a patient saying sure what
- 31:49you know what else can i do to help um
- 31:51at that moment but
- 31:52it really all comes back to those patients
- 31:54being so thankless um
- 31:56with their with their time and
- 31:57and all their information
- 31:59absolutely
- 32:01thank you all so much for being here
- 32:02and explaining this to us
- 32:04in a real world way
- 32:05that a patient can actually understand it
- 32:07because it's such valuable information
- 32:10and i think that patients hear about this
- 32:11and they get so excited
- 32:12but they don't know how to access the information
- 32:14or how to you know
- 32:16make it understandable or digestible
- 32:18so the fact that you guys came
- 32:20and explain this to us and took time out of your day
- 32:22it means the world to all of us and we're so grateful
- 32:25so thank you so very much for everyone watching
- 32:28thank you for tuning in
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