Bright Light Therapy in Patients With Melanoma or Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Who Are Receiving First-Line Immune Checkpoint Blockade (IIT BLT)

June 17, 2026 updated by: Weill Medical College of Cornell University

A Pilot Trial of Bright Light Therapy in Patients Receiving First Line Immune Checkpoint Blockade

This study is being done to test whether bright light therapy can be used to synchronize patients' circadian rhythms and allow ICB (immune-checkpoint blockade) therapy to be administered at a time in the circadian rhythm that optimizes clinical outcomes. This trial will test the feasibility of delivering bright light therapy (BLT) to patients undergoing ICB therapy.

This trial asks participants to spend 60 minutes every morning receiving daily bright light therapy for at least 7 days prior to starting Immune Checkpoint blockade-containing regimens (e.g. anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CTLA-4 alone or in combination with chemotherapy). The bright light therapy will be delivered via the Circadian OS iPad application.

There is evidence that a person's circadian rhythm can affect the response to immunotherapy. The circadian rhythm is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Many patients with cancer have disrupted circadian rhythms and it's possible that disrupted circadian rhythms decrease the likelihood of responding to immunotherapy.

The idea is to use bright light therapy, delivered via the Circadian OS iPad application, for an hour in the morning to synchronize your circadian rhythm for a week before your planned immunotherapy. The investigators hope that this will increase the likelihood of a response to immunotherapy, however in this study, the investigators are mainly concerned with whether the bright light therapy is tolerable to patients.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This is a pilot study evaluating the feasibility, safety, and biological effects of bright light therapy (BLT) delivered via the Circadian OS iPad application in patients with melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving first-line immune checkpoint blockade (ICB)-containing regimens.

This is a single-arm feasibility study of adherence to 60 minutes of daily BLT for >7 days prior to ICB initiation. The investigators aims to enroll patients with measurable tumor burden who plan to receive first line ICB-containing regimens (e.g. anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CTLA-4 alone or in combination with chemotherapy).

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

12

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10021
        • Weill Cornell Medicine
        • Contact:
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Paul Chapman, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Jessica Palmer, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Christine Garcia, MD
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Anna Pavlick, DO
        • Sub-Investigator:
          • Ashish Saxena, MD

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. Age ≥18 years.
  2. Histologically confirmed diagnosis of advanced, unresectable melanoma or NSCLC.
  3. Presence of measurable tumor burden.
  4. Scheduled to receive first-line cancer-directed therapy with an immune checkpoint blockade-containing regimen, as monotherapy or combination (e.g. pembrolizumab, ipilimumab + nivolumab, ICB + chemotherapy).
  5. ECOG performance status 0-2.
  6. Able to provide informed consent.
  7. Access to reliable internet connection via WiFi or personal hotspot

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Previous exposure to immune checkpoint blockade.
  2. Pregnant or breastfeeding.
  3. Use of melatonin or pharmacologic sleep aids (e.g., zolpidem, trazodone, benzodiazepines) within 14 days prior to enrollment.
  4. Diagnosis of bipolar disorder or history of mania or hypomania.
  5. Active psychosis, suicidal ideation, or recent psychiatric hospitalization (<3 months).
  6. Poorly controlled seizures.
  7. Chronotype classified as extremely early or extremely late, based on the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MSFsc < 2:00 or > 5:00).
  8. Night shift work within the past 30 days or expected during the intervention.
  9. Travel across ≥2 time zones within the past 14 days.
  10. Diagnosed or suspected untreated moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea.
  11. Migraine with photophobia.
  12. Presence of ocular or photosensitivity conditions affecting vision (i.e. advanced bilateral cataracts not yet operated, advanced glaucoma with substantial visual field loss, optic nerve disease, ocular surgery within the past 3 months with unresolved visual symptoms, color blindness).

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Single-arm: adherence to 60 minutes of daily Bright Light Therapy for >7 days prior to ICB initia
Device: Bright Light Therapy

Bright light therapy (BLT) will be delivered via the Circadian OS iPad application in patients with melanoma and NSCLC receiving first-line ICB-containing regimens (e.g. anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CTLA-4 alone or in combination with chemotherapy).

CS is a unit designed to model melatonin suppression in order to measure how effective a light source is at stimulating the body's circadian system, based on light intensity, duration, and angle of delivery. CS will be delivered through the Circadian OS application. 60 minutes of BLT for >7 days was chosen as an appropriate duration based on prior studies. With this stimulus, the goal is to entrain patients' circadian rhythm phase and amplitude to deliver ICB at peak immune function.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Proportion of participants who completed ≥70% BLT sessions, with a minimum of 7 consecutive days of monitoring.
Time Frame: Baseline through the day prior to Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).
The intervention will be considered feasible if ≥70% of patients achieve ≥70% adherence to the prescribed BLT sessions. Adherence will be automatically recorded via the Circadian OS iPad application using device-based monitoring of screen-on duration and light exposure data.
Baseline through the day prior to Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Participants with Adverse Events (AEs)
Time Frame: Baseline through first Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).
This will include adverse events, serious adverse events, and unanticipated adverse device effects.
Baseline through first Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).
Proportion of Participants with Adverse Events (AEs)
Time Frame: Baseline through first Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).
This will include adverse events, serious adverse events, and unanticipated adverse device effects.
Baseline through first Immune-Checkpoint Blockade administration (expected to be approximately 1-3 weeks).

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Collaborators

Circadian OS

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Paul Chapman, MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 17, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 17, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

June 22, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 22, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 17, 2026

Last Verified

June 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 25-10029453

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

Yes

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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