Benzinga | Aug 5, 2021 07:26AM EDT

Castle Biosciences Presents Data on DecisionDx-Melanoma and DecisionDx-SCC at the DERM2021 NP/PA CME Conference

Castle Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSTL), a dermatologic diagnostics company providing personalized genomic information to inform treatment decisions, today announced data presentations on two of its skin cancer gene expression profile tests at the DEF (Dermatology Education Foundation) Essential Resource Meeting (DERM2021) NP/PA (Nurse Practitioner/Physician Assistant) CME Conference, taking place from Aug. 5-8, 2021.

DecisionDx(r)-Melanoma:

DecisionDx-Melanoma is Castle's gene expression profile test that uses an individual patient's tumor biology to predict the risk of cutaneous melanoma metastasis or recurrence, as well as sentinel lymph node (SLN) positivity, independent of traditional staging factors. The Company will present two posters that highlight data assessing the clinical utility of the DecisionDx-Melanoma test.

The first poster, titled "Clinical utility of the 31-gene expression profile test on the management of cutaneous melanoma by nurse practitioners and physician assistants," highlights nurse practitioners' and physician assistants' (NP/PAs) attitudes toward the clinical use of DecisionDx-Melanoma in patients diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma.

Study methods and findings:

* In 2020, an institutional review board (IRB)-approved, 20-question study was conducted to understand the perception and clinical use of DecisionDx-Melanoma by clinicians, including NP/PAs.

* Of the 711 survey respondents, 266 self-identified as NP/PAs, with 50% of those (n=133) reporting ordering DecisionDx-Melanoma within the previous year.

* 89% of the NP/PAs responded that comprehensive prognostic testing (including DecisionDx-Melanoma) could improve patient care.

* Most NP/PAs who use DecisionDx-Melanoma (97%) would recommend additional prognostic testing to close friends or family members compared to just 58% of those who do not use DecisionDx-Melanoma.

* Among the NP/PAs who ordered DecisionDx-Melanoma in the previous year: 99% would recommend the test to a colleague. Most would consider patient management changes for patients with a T1 tumor (82%) or stage I melanoma (81%) who received a high-risk Class 2B DecisionDx-Melanoma test result.

The second poster is entitled "Integration of the continuous 31-gene expression profile score and clinicopathologic features to predict sentinel lymph node status in patients with cutaneous melanoma: Use of artificial intelligence to attain near perfect prediction." The study highlights the use of artificial intelligence to combine patients' clinical and pathological information with DecisionDx-Melanoma to improve the precision of sentinel lymph node (SLN) positivity prediction.

Study methods and findings:

* An integrated DecisionDx-Melanoma test result (i31-GEP) was developed to integrate DecisionDx-Melanoma's output, a risk assignment based on gene expression profile analysis, with clinicopathologic risk factors.

* The DecisionDx-Melanoma test result was the most important variable in predicting SLN positivity in relation to the other included variables.

* The independent validation phase showed that the i31-GEP provides a highly concordant prediction of SLN positivity rate compared to observed rates (linear regression slope of 0.999, with 1.0 representing complete concordance).

* Of patients originally classified with 5-10% SLN positivity risk by current guidelines, DecisionDx-Melanoma reclassified 63% of those patients, whose actual risk of SLN positivity was less than 5% or greater than 10%.

* i31-GEP had a high negative predictive value of 98% in patients with T1-T4 tumors.