Melanoma & Skin Cancer

The combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib reduced the risk of progression or death by 46% compared with vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for patients with BRAF-mutant unresectable melanoma.

The combination of nilotinib and trametinib proved to be synergistic in BRAF/NRAS wild-type melanoma.

The combination of dabrafenib and trametinib continued to demonstrate durable efficacy for patients with BRAF V600E/K-mutant melanoma across patient subgroups in a 3-year analysis of the phase III COMBI-d study, with baseline site of metastasis identified as a predictor of overall survival ≥36 months,

Graham Mann, MBBS, PhD, FRACP, professor of Medicine, Westmead Clinical School and co-director of the Centre for Cancer Research, The Westmead Institute for Medical Research at the University of Sydney in Australia, discusses his findings from the Australian Melanoma Genome Project, which were presented at the 2016 Society for Melanoma Research (SMR) Congress.

Stefani Spranger, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, discusses recent findings about why a certain subgroup of patients with melanoma do not have T cells within their tumor microenvironment.

Helmut Schiader, MD, discusses why drug resistance may be due to epigenetic changes and not mutation-induced changes, as well as the role of immunotherapy/targeted therapy combinations in combating resistance.

The combination of atezolizumab and cobimetinib may lead to a higher overall response and a longer progression-free survival than either agent alone in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Christian Blank, MD, PhD, Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses some of the early findings from the OpACIN trial testing a combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant setting for patients with stage III melanoma.

Neoadjuvant therapy with the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab is plausible and effective but can induce a high level of adverse events calling for further research into better tolerated dosing schemes.

Ryan Sullivan, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses how best to treat patients with melanoma who have the BRAF mutation.

The addition of the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab to the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib and the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib induced a high response rate for patients with BRAF-mutant unresectable melanoma.

Jason Luke, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the role for immunotherapy and targeted agents in patients with BRAF-positive melanoma.