Melanoma & Skin Cancer

Study raises concern about surgical "margins" for acral melanoma tumors, known to target the darker skins of Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics

Anna C. Pavlick, DO, associate professor, Hematology and Medical Oncology, medical director, Clinical Trials Office, Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone, discusses a phase II trial exploring low-dose cyclophosphamide and ipilimumab in metastatic melanoma.

Jason J. Luke, MD, instructor, Department of Medicine, Harvard School of Medicine, staff physician, medical oncologist- melanoma, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the controversy behind the COMBI-d trial results.

Keith T. Flaherty, MD, discusses upcoming combination therapies being explored in melanoma, specifically those involving CDK4/6, BRAF/MEK, immune checkpoints, and other novel approaches.

Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute, discusses the curative potential of immunotherapy for patients with cancer.

The combination of the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib with the investigational MEK inhibitor cobimetinib was safe and effective in treatment-naive patients with BRAFV600 mutation-positive metastatic melanoma.

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (MK-3475) as a treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma following progression on ipilimumab.

A novel immunotherapeutic known as IMCgp100 induced clinical responses with manageable toxicity in patients with advanced melanoma

A 10-year follow-up study of regional melanoma staging strategies found that patients who underwent sentinel-node biopsies had significantly greater disease-free survival rates (DFSRs) compared with patients monitored through nodal observation.

Talimogene laherparepvec significantly improved durable response rates but failed to extend overall survival in patients with advanced melanoma.

PD-L1 levels adequately predict response and clinical outcomes for PD-1 inhibitor MK-3475 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma

The oncolytic immunotherapeutic vaccine talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) promoted tumor shrinkage in 64% of patients with advanced melanoma, including a marked reduction in the size of uninjected metastatic lesions

Nivolumab, a PD-1-specific antibody, has been shown to produce long-term remissions with limited toxicity in patients with advanced melanoma, according to results from one of the longest follow ups to examine the drug.

Karl Lewis, MD, medical oncologist, associate professor, University of Colorado, discusses sequencing strategies for the treatment of melanoma.

Although breakthrough successes are generating a renaissance for anticancer immunotherapies, the framework for translating promising research results into clinical practice remains very much under construction.

As melanoma becomes more prevalent and more lethal in the United States, a multidisciplinary approach for treating inoperable in-transit metastases has proved to be a viable and valuable option.

In an interview with OncLive, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, from the Moffitt Cancer Center, University of South Florida, Tampa, explored the utilization of molecular and immune-targeted therapies as treatments for patients with advanced melanoma.

Inhibitory receptors such as anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death 1 (PD-1) expressed on tumor-specific T cells lead to compromised activation and suppressed effector functions such as proliferation, cytokine secretion, and tumor cell lysis.

High-tech eyewear could soon help surgeons remove tumors from patients with breast cancer or melanoma by allowing them to see the margins of tumors more accurately when a dye is used to fluoresce a tumor's borders.

Merck announced the signing of three separate clinical collaboration agreements to evaluate the potential of its investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 across multiple tumor types

Immunotherapy has become an increasingly appealing therapeutic strategy for patients with cancer, with many late-stage clinical trials demonstrating overall survival (OS) advantages in melanoma and castrationresistant prostate cancer.

There has been considerable discussion within the oncology literature during the past several years regarding the level of evidence required to consider a new antineoplastic agent an acceptable "standard-of-care" in routine disease management.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to the combination of the MEK inhibitor trametinib and the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib as a treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma that harbors a BRAF V600E or V600K mutation.

Harriet Kluger, MD, associate professor of medicine (medical oncology), associate director, Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the changes and challenges of treating patients with melanoma.

The Malignant Melanoma Program at Wake Forest Baptist Health employs a multidisciplinary approach for the management of patients with all stages of this disease. The goals of the program are centered on unequivocal excellence in all areas of care for patients with malignant melanoma.