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Continuous dosing with dabrafenib and trametinib improved progression-free survival in patients with BRAF-mutated advanced melanoma compared with an intermittent-dosing strategy, according to results of the phase II SWOG S1320 randomized trial reported at the opening Plenary Session of the 2020...
Immunotherapy is showing promise for patients with rare cancers, offering new treatment opportunities and clinical trials to those with previously limited options. At the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, presenters discussed the use of immunotherapy in three low-incidence cancers: ...
Omid Hamid, MD, Chief of Research/Immuno-Oncology, The Angeles Clinic & Research Institute, and Co-Director of the Cutaneous Malignancy Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center, Los Angeles, commented on these two studies for The ASCO Post. According to Dr. Hamid, the findings for the tumor...
Several novel strategies for the treatment of patients with stage III or IV melanoma showed promise in studies presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1,2 Vaccine for High-Risk Patients After Resection A tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell (TLPLDC) vaccine was...
Systemic treatment of melanoma has changed rapidly since the introduction of ipilimumab in 2011. Newer therapies approved for melanoma since that time include immunotherapy, targeted therapy for mutation-bearing tumors, and injectional therapy for cutaneous or palpable lesions. ASCO has released...
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III results from a study of previously untreated patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive advanced melanoma. His team evaluated whether combining vemurafenib and cobimetinib with atezolizumab improved the durability of responses compared with targeted therapies plus placebo (Abstract CT012).
“The hypothesis of combining kinase inhibitors with checkpoint inhibitors could be a fantastic idea,” said formal study discussant Charles Sawyers, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. “This trial [IMspire150] is positive, and that is great news. Triple therapy is superior to...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to two targeted therapies (the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib) as initial therapy improved outcomes compared with the two targeted therapies plus placebo in patients with newly diagnosed BRAF V600E/K–mutant advanced ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Suzanne L. Topalian, MD, and colleagues, neoadjuvant treatment with nivolumab was found to produce pathologic complete response in approximately half of patients with resectable Merkel cell carcinoma enrolled in the phase I/II CheckMate 358 trial....
Black patients with stage I to III melanoma are likely to experience a longer delay from diagnosis to surgery than non-Hispanic white patients, according to a study published by Tripathi et al in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. “We already knew that black patients with melanoma...
A randomized clinical trial offers evidence that a combination of two targeted melanoma drugs, when given continuously, improves progression-free survival when compared with intermittent treatment, according to study results presented by Algazi et al at the American Association for Cancer Research...
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Naples, Italy, talks about minimizing risks for patients with cancer, prioritizing surgery and other treatments for melanoma, and the state of clinical trials. Filmed April 17, 2020.
For several tumor types, can the successes achieved with immunotherapy in the metastatic and adjuvant settings be replicated in the neoadjuvant setting? An explosion in clinical trials—with more than 300 listed on ClinicalTrials.gov—point to “yes.” “The neoadjuvant use of immunotherapy is of great ...
In a study published by Olsen et al in JAMA Dermatology, researchers found that in predominantly fair-skinned populations, melanoma incidence differed by age and anatomic site in men and women. Methods A cross-sectional analysis of sex- and site-specific trends was performed for white patients...
Discussant of the abstract on antibiotic exposure, Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant Professor of Oncology and Attending Physician at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, said that Mr. Chu and colleagues have added to the recent literature examining concurrent use of...
Treatment with antibiotics prior to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may confer poorer overall survival and an increased risk of colitis in patients with advanced melanoma, according to data presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1 The largest institutional...
In a literature review published by Pampena et al in JAMA Dermatology, researchers provided detailed and extensive information about the features of several different kinds of rare cutaneous melanomas. According to the researchers, the analysis was performed to “…provide a comprehensive overview of ...
Recent treatment advances in metastatic melanoma resulted in reductions in population-level mortality from the disease, according to a study published by Polsky et al in the American Journal of Public Health. Methods Researchers analyzed new cases and deaths from melanoma from nine U.S....
Individuals who experience the loss of a partner are less likely to be diagnosed with melanoma—but face an increased risk of dying from the disease, according to research published by Wong et al in the British Journal of Dermatology. While previous studies have suggested a link between various...
In a single-center study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that approximately three-quarters of patients with advanced melanoma achieving a complete response on programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor therapy were alive...
A new study found a wide state-by-state variation in rates of melanoma caused by ultraviolet (UV) exposure, with highest rates in several states on the east and west coasts (including Hawaii), but also a few landlocked states (including Utah, Vermont, and Minnesota). The report, published by Islami ...
John N. Lukens, MD, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his finding that taking antibiotics within 3 months of starting treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors may lead to inferior overall survival in patients with stage III or IV melanoma. The antibiotics were also linked to a higher incidence of severe immune-mediated colitis (Abstract 56).
Kevin Tyan, of Kinnos, and currently a medical school student at Harvard University, discusses his study findings, which showed that patients with melanoma who are treated with immunotherapy had a significantly lower risk of developing colitis if they also took vitamin D ( Abstract 89).
Philippa G. Corrie, PhD, of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, discusses a review of 2,322 patients with metastatic melanoma receiving first-line immune checkpoint inhibitors as standard of care in England between 2014 and 2018 (Abstract 55).
Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, summarizes a session she co-chaired on utilizing the immune system in neoadjuvant trials to treat melanoma, breast, and lung cancers.
In the largest study to date of skin cancer rates among individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital reported important differences in skin cancer prevalence among sexual minorities. Rates of skin cancer were higher among gay and bisexual...
In an exploratory biomarker analysis from the COMBI-AD trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Dummer et al found that tumor mutational burden (TMB) and interferon-gamma gene-signature profiles might be associated with an augmented benefit of adjuvant dabrafenib plus trametinib in resected BRAF...
A study published by Anthony Lucci, MD, and colleagues in Clinical Cancer Research showed that the presence of circulating tumor cells was independently associated with relapse of melanoma, suggesting circulating tumor cell assessment may be a useful tool for identifying patients at risk for...
A study using data from two major melanoma centers in the United States and Australia, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Haydu et al, has shown a 5-year cumulative incidence of central nervous system (CNS) metastasis of 15.8% among patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer...
Residents of rural, sparsely populated “frontier counties” in the western United States have a higher incidence of skin cancer and related mortality rates. New research published by Jensen et al in Psychology, Health & Medicine indicated that the biggest obstacle to early detection and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Migden et al, a phase II trial has shown activity of cemiplimab in patients with locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. The trial supported the September 2018 U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of cemiplimab in this setting. In this report, ...
In a paper published by Pruessmann et al in Nature Cancer, investigators presented a new, quantitative technique that leverages DNA sequencing to make more sophisticated and accurate predictions about which primary melanomas are likely to recur and spread. "As recently as 10 years ago, the outlook...
In an analysis of the EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial of adjuvant pembrolizumab vs placebo in stage III melanoma reported in JAMA Oncology, Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that patients treated with pembrolizumab who experienced immune-related adverse events had improved...
The likelihood of a patient responding to immune checkpoint blockade may depend on B cells in the tumor, located within specialized immune-cell clusters known as tertiary lymphoid structures, according to three studies all recently published in Nature. The studies showed that enrichment of B cells...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Tarhini et al, the phase III Intergroup E1609 trial has shown an overall survival advantage with adjuvant ipilimumab at 3 mg/kg—but not at 10 mg/kg—vs high-dose interferon alfa-2b in patients with resected high-risk cutaneous melanoma. The...
Patients with advanced melanoma who develop metastases in the leptomeninges usually have a poor prognosis—most patients only survive for 8 to 10 weeks after diagnosis. One reason for this poor prognosis is that very little is known about the molecular development of leptomeningeal melanoma...
Bariatric surgery is associated with a distinct reduction in skin cancer risk, according to findings published by Taube et al in JAMA Dermatology. This finding further substantiates the connection between weight loss and malignant skin cancer. “This [study] provides further evidence for a...
In early 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph node(s) following complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the double-blind EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier...
Due to the rarity of advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, staying current with the latest information on diagnosing, treating, and supporting patients with this diagnosis can be challenging for clinicians who do not often encounter it in practice. To support the multi-disciplinary cancer...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides recommendations on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients diagnosed with the most common types of skin cancers. The guideline details when radiation treatments are appropriate as stand-alone therapy...
Due to the rarity of advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, staying current with the latest information on diagnosing, treating, and supporting patients with this diagnosis can be challenging for clinicians who do not often encounter it in practice. To support the multidisciplinary cancer team ...
High-dose brachytherapy for elderly patients with nonmelanoma skin cancer produces excellent cure rates and cosmetic outcomes, according to a new study presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) (Abstract SSM24-02). “For elderly patients [with...
More than one out of two patients with metastatic melanoma treated with the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimu-mab is still alive after 5 years, according to the longest follow-up of patients receiving this combination. In two additional studies, the immunotherapy duet also proved to be active...
A blood test could soon become a monitoring tool for the early detection of uveal melanoma. Stark et al discovered markers in the blood that can differentiate between a benign mole and a melanoma, while also determining whether the cancer has metastasized, according to findings they published in...
A phase Ib study evaluating the safety and long-term benefit of combination treatment with the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib plus the MEK1 inhibitor cobimetinib in patients with advanced BRAF V600E–mutated melanoma has found that nearly 40% of the patients experienced extended survival of 4 to 5 years ...
For the last decade, medical experts have known that voriconazole—an antifungal medication used to prevent infections in patients with compromised immune systems—is linked to the development of particularly aggressive squamous cell carcinoma in skin exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays. However, the...
For the treatment of BRAF V600-mutated advanced melanoma, we now have three BRAF/MEK inhibitor combinations that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: dabrafenib/trametinib, vemurafenib/cobimetinib, and encorafenib/binimetinib. Although the toxicity profiles for these combinations ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, of the Institut Gustave Roussy and Paris-Sud-Paris-Saclay University, Villejuif, and colleagues, the long-term follow-up of the phase III COMBI-d and COMBI-v trials has shown a pooled 5-year overall survival rate of 34% ...
Head and neck melanoma appears to be on the rise in young people in the United States and Canada, according to a study by Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters, BDS, PhD, MPH, CHES, of the Saint Louis University (SLU) School of Medicine, and colleagues. Because the prognosis of head and neck melanoma is...
In a French retrospective study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Herms et al found that long-term response is frequently maintained in patients discontinuing vismodegib after complete remission of locally advanced basal cell carcinoma, and that responses can be achieved with vismodegib ...