Melanoma & Skin Cancer

Merrick I. Ross, MD, discusses ongoing challenges in melanoma, including treating liver metastases, the diminished yet important role of surgery, and the need for better biomarkers.

Michael A. Postow, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses combinations of regimens for patients with high-risk melanoma.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, deputy director and co-director of the Melanoma Program at the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the results of CheckMate-238 compared with other adjuvant trials for patients with melanoma.

Half of patients with melanoma who progressed on anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy benefited from the combination of nivolumab and the LAG-3 inhibitor relatlimab.

The European Commission has approved avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma.

The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is an independent factor for overall survival in patients with metastatic melanoma, whether they receive targeted therapy or immunotherapy.

The FDA has accepted new drug applications supporting use of the combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib for BRAF-mutant advanced, unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Nearly half of patients with resectable stage IIIB/C BRAF V600-mutant melanoma achieved pathologic complete response with neoadjuvant combination therapy consisting of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist).

Adjuvant therapy with vemurafenib for high-risk melanoma led to mixed results, as patients with stage IIIC or later did not benefit, but those with earlier stage disease did.

Reinhard Dummer, MD, of University Hospital Zurich, discusses the results of the phase III COMBI-AD study presented at the 2017 ESMO Congress in patients with stage III BRAF-mutant melanoma.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) may represent a new standard option for adjuvant therapy for patients with resected stage IIIB/C and IV melanoma, whether or not they have a BRAF mutation. In a comparison with current standard high-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy), nivolumab demonstrated a significant improvement in relapse-free survival.

Omid Hamid, MD, director of the melanoma center at the Angeles Clinic & Research Institute in Los Angeles, discusses the phase III results of the ECHO-202/KEYNOTE-037 trial, which explored the IDO inhibitor epacadostat plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with advanced melanoma.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, deputy director and co-director of the Melanoma Program at the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the CheckMate-238 trial for patients with melanoma.

Adjuvant treatment with dabrafenib and trametinib reduced the risk of relapse or death by 53% compared with placebo for patients with stage III BRAF-mutant melanoma.

A majority of patients with advanced melanoma responded to the combination of pembrolizumab and the investigational IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat.