For patients undergoing fine-needle aspiration biopsy, the option to have a second sample taken at the same time and stored in the Castle Clinical Sample Repository can be discussed.

Patients who have the DecisionDx^®-UM gene expression profile (GEP) test will be offered our free, 5-year tissue repository program, giving them the option to have an additional sample of their tumor tissue stored for future use. The extra tissue would be collected at the same time as the biopsy procedure for the GEP test, with both samples being sent to Castle at the same time.

The healthcare team at Castle Biosciences offers the Castle Clinical Sample Repository program free of charge to all DecisionDx-UM patients. We are strong believers in the power of personalized medicine, and with its rapid advancements, a patient’s ability to take advantage of new targeted treatments, clinical trials, and further prognostic testing as they become available. The samples will be stored for 5 years and can only be released for use by patient request. Castle will not use the samples for its own research purposes.

Uveal melanoma is one of the few cancers that is primarily diagnosed clinically. This means that, unless the eye is enucleated rather than treated with radiation, there is typically no tumor tissue to store or any guidelines that would require it. The tissue repository addresses an important need in diagnosis and treatment of this disease.