Ocular melanoma is the most common type of eye cancer in adults, yet the condition is very rare. This disease develops in uveal melanoctyes, which are the cells that produce pigment in the eyes, and affects approximately 5-6 people per 1,000,000 in the general population. It is diagnosed in about 2,500 people in the United States each year.
Individuals with ocular melanoma have approximately a 50% chance of their cancer spreading to the liver, which is almost always fatal. Ophthalmologists and other specialists are challenged in treating patients with ocular melanoma metastases, given this aggressive cancer responds to neither chemotherapy, nor radiotherapy.
Over the past decade, the incidence of ocular melanoma has risen alarmingly in the Huntersville, NC, area. Soil sampling and genetic testing have produced no answers as to why the case count continues to rise in a town of almost 60,000 residents.
In early August, WSOC-TV 9 in Charlotte, NC, reached out to UNC Ophthalmology Research Assistant Professor Jacquelyn (Jackie) Bower, PhD to learn more about ocular melanoma. Dr. Bower has presented widely on the mechanisms of ocular tumorigenesis and DNA damage-related causes of ocular pathogenesis. In an interview, Dr. Bower explained her lab’s investigative work in developing a targeted gene therapy that enables treatment teams to stop this aggressive cancer during its early stages, prior to the uveal melanoma cells spreading to the liver.
Dr. Bower noted: “Our team’s hope is to develop a gene therapy that inhibits the function of overactive proteins in uveal melanoma cells. Preventing the activation of these uveal melanoma proteins would lead to tumor cell death and a decrease in the number of cells likely to metastasize. If successful, this therapy may even have the potential to save a patient’s vision in the affected eye.”
Dr. Bower’s lab is in the pre-clinical, earliest investigative stages of developing a gene therapy that could be used by providers to treat affected patients. Nonetheless, her lab is growing the footprint at the University of North Carolina in developing gene therapy strategies to treat a rare type of ocular malignancy. If Dr. Bower’s work can advance the therapy from the pre-clinical stages into successful clinical trials for this disease, it will pave the way for the ophthalmic research community to further explore the mechanisms of ocular tumorigenesis and to advance additional potential treatments to attack this cancer at the cellular level.
Dr. Bower noted: “Though we are currently in the very early stages of development, our ultimate goal is to generate a first-in-kind gene therapy to help shift the conversation surrounding ocular melanoma from a bleak prognosis to a hopeful one, especially when it has spread beyond the affected eye.”
Legislators continue to push for funding to be added to the State of North Carolina Assembly’s budget to research a disease that has claimed too many lives. To watch the interview with Dr. Bower on WSOC-TV 9, click here.