Melanoma & Skin Cancer

The addition of BO-112 to pembrolizumab produced clinical benefit in patients with unresectable malignant melanoma who have experienced disease progression on anti–PD-1 therapy, according to data from the preliminary analysis of the phase 2 SPOTLIGHT-203 trial.

Ezra Cohen, MD, FRCPSC, FASCO, and Gino K. In, MD, MPH, elaborate on the role hedgehog inhibitors can play when treating patients with basal cell carcinoma.

Drs Emerick and Bakst continue to speak on the data from the first clinical case scenario and highlight other treatment options.

Several leading experts discussed a variety of tumor types set to influence the next wave of investigative directions and change the standard of care for patients in abstracts at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress 2021.

Positive data readouts from studies such as the phase 2/3 RELATIVITY-047 trial with relatlimab and nivolumab, and the phase 3 KEYNOTE-716 trial with pembrolizumab, cemented 2021 as a banner year for the treatment of patients with melanoma, across various stages and subtypes.

Iván Márquez Rodas, MD, PhD, discusses the preliminary results of the phase 2 SPOTLIGHT203 trial, which is evaluating the efficacy and safety of BO-112 plus pembrolizumab in patients with advanced melanoma.

Richard Bakst, MD, and Ezra Cohen, MD, FRCPSC, FASCO, explain what the typical clinical presentation of basal cell carcinoma will look like in a patient.

Kevin Emerick, MD, analyzes the data from the first clinical case scenario and touches upon potential surgical options for patients with similar diagnoses.

Caroline Nebhan, MD, PhD, discusses the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors in older patients with cancer.

The COVID-19 vaccine was safe and well tolerated in patients who received immune checkpoint inhibitors for renal cell carcinoma or melanoma.

The FDA has greenlit an investigation new drug application to expand the ongoing phase 1/2 ABILITY trial, which is evaluating the beta-only IL-2 superagonist MDNA11 in patients with solid tumors, to clinical trial sites in the United States.

The addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies has paved the way for advances in the adjuvant and met-astatic setting with recent data from clinical trials demonstrating significant improvements in overall survival for patients with advanced melanoma.

Although there has been dramatic progress in the treatment landscape for metastatic melanoma over the past decade, many patients whose tumors harbor NRAS mutations have not shared in the improved outcomes.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab continued to showcase improved relapse-free survival over placebo in patients with resected high-risk stage II melanoma with 6 months of additional follow-up.

Dirk Schadendorf, MD, discusses expected toxicities with the combination of encorafenib, binimetinib, and pembrolizumab in BRAF V600E/K-mutated melanoma.

Alexander J. Stratigos, MD, PhD, discussed the effect cemiplimab will have on the treatment landscape of patients with advanced BCC.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to the universal cancer vaccine UV1 for use in combination with checkpoint inhibitors in patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma, either as an add-on therapy to pembrolizumab or to ipilimumab.

A linear correlation between magnitude of circulating tumor DNA reduction and improved overall survival was observed in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma who were treated with tebentafusp, suggesting that ctDNA may be a better surrogate end point for OS compared with RECIST response criteria.

The European Medicines Agency has validated its marketing authorization application for the fixed-dose combination of relatlimab and nivolumab in the frontline treatment of adult and pediatric patients with advanced melanoma.

Omid Hamid, MD, discusses the integration of tumor infiltrating lymphocyte–based therapy into the melanoma armamentarium.

Hussein A. Tawbi, MD, PhD, discusses the safety and efficacy achieved with relatlimab plus nivolumab in the RELATIVITY-047 trial and sheds light on the clinical significance of the data in the melanoma treatment paradigm.

The FDA has granted priority review to a biologics license application for the fixed-dose combination of relatlimab plus nivolumab for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients aged 12 years and older and weighing at least 40 kg who have unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP, discusses the results of the phase 3 KEYNOTE-716 trial in high-risk stage II melanoma.

Circulating tumor DNA was a better predictor for survival than RECIST 1.1 for patients with previously treated, HLA-A*02:01-positive metastatic uveal melanoma assigned to tebentafusp.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab led to a significant reduction in the risk of disease recurrence or death compared with placebo in patients with resected, high-risk stage II melanoma.

Filip Janku, MD, PhD, discusses the results form a phase 1 study of ripretinib, a broad-spectrum KIT and PDGFRA inhibitor, in patients with KIT-mutated or KIT-amplified melanoma.

Most physician-scientists are intense, motivated and focused, but Keith T. Flaherty, MD, takes it to another level.

The universal cancer vaccine UV1 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in combination with pembrolizumab elicited encouraging initial signs of clinical response with favorable safety and tolerability when used in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma, meeting the primary end point of an ongoing phase 1 trial.

The topical HDAC inhibitor remetinostat demonstrated favorable tolerability and clinically significant efficacy in reducing disease burden in patients with basal cell carcinoma, according to results from a phase 2 trial.

Prior treatment with PD-1 or MAPK inhibitors resulted in lower objective response rates with adoptive cell transfer of autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in patients with metastatic melanoma vs patients who were naïve to these agents.