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There has been debate as to the optimal dose of single-agent ipilimumab (Yervoy) in metastatic melanoma. A phase III study presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress—the first to directly compare these doses—concluded that 10 mg/kg is more effective, but also more...
As neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy for stage III melanoma patients with palpable disease, the combination of ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) was shown to be a promising, though also toxic, combination in a phase Ib study reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) ...
The injectable oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec (also known as T-VEC, Imlygic) may become a valuable component of combination immunotherapy approaches in melanoma, a strategy believed to help overcome resistance of tumors to single-agent immunotherapies. “[Talimogene laherparepvec] ...
Patients with malignant melanoma are more likely to respond to immunotherapy treatment if they have greater diversity in their gut bacteria, according to new research presented by Wargo et al at the National Cancer Research Institute's (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool, United Kingdom....
In an Australian trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dieng et al found that use of a psychoeducational intervention reduced the fear of cancer recurrence and stress among patients at high risk of developing a second primary melanoma. Study Details In the trial, 164 patients from 3 ...
The field of cancer vaccines may be reinvigorated by a new understanding, and the therapeutic leveraging, of neoantigens. Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston are exploring this novel approach as a means of protecting patients with high-risk melanoma from recurrence. Early...
In an analysis from the phase IB KEYNOTE-001 trial, Daud et al found that the level of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression was associated with outcomes of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment in patients with advanced melanoma. These findings were reported in the Journal of Clinical...
Patients with stage III melanoma who were considered to be at high risk for recurrence derived an overall survival benefit from adjuvant treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy), although it came at the price of considerable toxicity, according to updated survival results from the phase III European...
A pooled analysis from three clinical trials in advanced melanoma shows that although patients treated with nivolumab and nivolumab plus ipilimumab with ≥ 5% programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor expression have similar progression-free survival, durable response rates were higher for the...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On September 13, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Khalil et al in Clinical Cancer Research. IMD-20D7S is a...
In the phase III European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) trial 18071 reported at the recent European Society for Medical Oncology meeting and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Eggermont et al, adjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) was found to improve recurrence-free and...
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori–Fondazione Pascale, discusses in Italian overall survival and safety results from a phase 3 trial of ipilimumab at 3 mg/kg vs 10 mg/kg in patients with metastatic melanoma. (Abstract 1106O)
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) as adjuvant therapy significantly improves overall survival in patients with high-risk stage III melanoma, according to the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) 18071 phase III trial results presented by Eggermont et al at the European Society for...
Alexander Eggermont, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, discusses final overall survival findings on ipilimumab vs placebo after complete resection of stage III melanoma. (Abstract LBA2)
Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses study findings on neoadjuvant ipilimumab plus nivolumab in patients with palpable stage III melanoma. (Abstract LBA39)
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori–Fondazione Pascale, discusses overall survival and safety results from a phase III trial of ipilimumab at 3 mg/kg vs 10 mg/kg in patients with metastatic melanoma. (Abstract 1106O)
Omid Hamid, MD, of The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute, discusses survival data from this clinical trial on pembrolizumab vs investigator-choice chemotherapy for ipilimumab-refractory melanoma. (Abstract 1107O) Follow him on Twitter: @omidhamidmd
Although some patients with melanoma experience durable responses to treatment with the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) therapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the majority of patients do not experience a durable clinical benefit from anti–PD-1 monotherapy, according to a study by ...
A multibasket phase Ib study evaluating the clinical activity, tolerability, and antitumor activity of the cytokine-based immunotherapy AM0010 alone or in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has found that in monotherapy, objective responses to AM0010 were ...
As reported by Ascierto et al in The Lancet Oncology, longer-term follow-up in the pivotal phase III coBRIM trial confirmed the benefit of adding cobimetinib to vemurafenib (Zelboraf) in first-line treatment of BRAF V600–mutant unresectable stage IIIC or IV melanoma. Grant A. McArthur, FRACP, of...
The immunotherapy ipilimumab (Yervoy) has revolutionized the treatment of malignant melanoma and resulted in durable responses in 20% to 25% of patients with the cancer. Sebastian Theurich, MD, of the Center for Integrated Oncology at the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany, and colleagues...
A new study from Drexel University College of Medicine suggests all organ transplant recipients, regardless of race, should receive routine, total-body screenings for skin cancer. Out of 259 nonwhite transplant recipients who were evaluated in the study, 19 skin cancer lesions were identified in...
Hodi et al found “encouraging survival outcomes” with the addition of nivolumab to ipilimumab in patients with previously untreated unresectable stage III or IV melanoma, according to 2-year overall survival data in the phase II CheckMate 069 trial. These results were reported in The...
On September 13, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modified the dosage regimen for nivolumab (Opdivo) for the currently approved indications for renal cell carcinoma, metastatic melanoma, and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The currently approved recommended dosage...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kaufman et al found that the anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) monoclonal antibody avelumab produced durable responses in patients with stage IV Merkel cell carcinoma progressing after cytotoxic chemotherapy. Study Details In...
In an analysis of National Cancer Data Base data reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Bhatia et al found that adjuvant radiotherapy was associated with a survival benefit in patients with stage I and II but not stage III Merkel cell carcinoma, with no benefit of adjuvant...
Study Title: Long-Pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG Laser Treatment of Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) Study Type: Interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: University of California, San Diego; Massachusetts General Hospital Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of laser...
A recent report regarding pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for advanced Merkel cell carcinoma ushered in a more optimistic era in the treatment of this rare but often lethal skin cancer.1 The ASCO Post spoke with one of the field’s leaders, Paul Nghiem, MD, PhD—the first author of the study—about the...
Immune response measured in tumor biopsies during the course of early treatment predicts which melanoma patients will benefit from specific immune checkpoint blockade drugs, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found in a report published by Chen et al in Cancer...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Nishino et al identified the rates of PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitor–related pneumonitis in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), renal cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Rates were...
Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) may have unraveled the metastatic mechanism of melanoma. According to a paper published by Dror et al in Nature Cell Biology, scientists discovered that before spreading to other organs, a melanoma tumor sends out tiny vesicles containing molecules of...
Sarah B. Goldberg, MD, of Yale University School of Medicine, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was active in untreated or progressive brain metastases in melanoma and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology....
Immune response measured in tumor biopsies during the course of early treatment predicts which melanoma patients will benefit from specific immune checkpoint blockade drugs, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Chen et al reported their findings in...
As reported by Ascierto et al in The Lancet Oncology, longer-term follow-up in the pivotal phase III coBRIM trial confirmed the benefit of adding cobimetinib to vemurafenib (Zelboraf) in first-line treatment of BRAF V600–mutant unresectable stage IIIC or IV melanoma. Study Details In the...
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has identified an additional mechanism for resistance to targeted treatment for BRAF-mutant melanoma. Their findings, published by Shen et al in Nature Medicine, report that inactivating mutations in two genes responsible for regulating key...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Chapuis et al, concurrent use of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) antigen-4 (CTLA-4) blockade with ipilimumab (Yervoy) and adoptively transferred antigen-specific CTLs produced enduring responses in patients with stage IV melanoma. Cassian Yee, ...
In a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine, de Maleissye et al described two cases of severe demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy that occurred after pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment for advanced melanoma. Case 1 A 45-year-old woman receiving pembrolizumab at 2 mg/kg every ...
The immunotherapy ipilimumab (Yervoy) has revolutionized the treatment of malignant melanoma and resulted in durable responses in 20% to 25% of patients with the cancer. A study by Theurich et al investigating the benefits of combining ipilimumab with local peripheral treatments, such as...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Zaretsky et al found that defects in interferon receptor signaling and antigen-presenting pathways were associated with acquired resistance to PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibition in melanoma. Resistance Mutations Identified ...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has concluded that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of visual skin examination by a clinician to screen for skin cancer in asymptomatic adults. The report was published in JAMA. This is an “I...
Two studies presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting focused on the use of combination immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma. Updated results from the phase III CheckMate 067 trial centered on the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) compared...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Chapuis et al, concurrent use of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) antigen-4 (CTLA-4) blockade with ipilimumab (Yervoy) and adoptively transferred antigen-specific CTLs produced enduring responses in patients with stage IV melanoma. Study...
In the phase II CheckMate 064 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weber et al found that sequential nivolumab (Opdivo)/ipilimumab (Yervoy) was more active than the reverse sequence (ipilimumab/nivolumab) in patients with advanced melanoma. Study Details In the open-label study, 138 patients...
Goldberg et al found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was active in untreated or progressive brain metastases in melanoma and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details The study included 36 patients at Yale...
An international, multi-institutional research team consisting of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO); The Wistar Institute; Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre; the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has...
Immunotherapy marches on! One of the latest frontiers for checkpoint inhibitors is the treatment of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare but aggressive type of cancer. First-line therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—an anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitor—achieved an objective response...
Jeffrey Sosman, MD, melanoma expert and researcher, will join the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University as Co-Leader of the Translational Research in Solid Tumors (TRIST) Program and Director of the Melanoma Program. He will also serve as Director for Faculty...
Skin cancer screenings performed by primary care physicians during routine office visits improve the detection of potentially deadly melanomas and find them in earlier stages, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The results were presented by Ferris et al...
Anthony J. Olszanski, RPh, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Michael A. Davies, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discuss this phase III study of dabrafenib plus trametinib vs dabrafenib monotherapy in patients with unresectable or metastatic BRAF V600E/K-mutant cutaneous melanoma (Abstract 9502).