Skin Cancer & Melanoma

Melanoma patients who were treated with glucocorticoids for ipilimumab-induced hypophysitis had improved survival outcomes if they received low doses.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors initiated soon before or after radiosurgery offer excellent outcomes in patients with brain metastases originating from melanoma.

The combination of an oncolytic virus with ipilimumab yielded a significantly higher response rate vs ipilimumab alone in patients with advanced melanoma.

An antigen-specific immunotherapeutic known as MAGE-A3 was no better than placebo for the adjuvant treatment of stage IIIB or IIIC melanoma.

After 4 years of follow-up, pembrolizumab demonstrated durable antitumor activity and improved outcomes over ipilimumab in advanced melanoma.

Patients who responded to anti–PD-1 therapy and experienced prolonged progression-free survival had a much greater diversity of gut bacteria.

The genetically engineered oncolytic herpes simplex virus produced promising clinical responses in stage IIIB–IVM1a melanoma.

Extended follow-up from the CheckMate 238 trial confirmed the superior efficacy of nivolumab vs ipilimumab in patients with stage III and IV resected melanoma.

Medical oncologist Ryan J. Sullivan shared some interesting melanoma-related presentations from the  2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Deeper inhibition of the MAPK pathway by targeting both MEK and BRAF may help improve progression-free survival outcomes in patients with advanced BRAF V600–mutated melanoma.

The presence and burden of single nucleotide variants as measured in cell-free DNA may have substantial prognostic utility in patients with melanoma who have metastases.

A Moffitt team suggests mathematical modeling may guide the optimal cancer treatment dosing approach better than MTD.

In this review, we highlight prospective data on checkpoint inhibition alone and in combination, discuss data regarding the efficacy and toxicity of combination therapy, and identify clinical scenarios that may favor treatment with combination therapy.

The FDA granted approval to the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib for the adjuvant treatment of melanoma, specifically in patients with a BRAF V600E or V600K mutation.

Melanoma patients who are married tend to present at earlier stages of the disease than those who are not married, divorced, or widowed; marital status was also associated with the likelihood of undergoing SLNB.

Treatment with the TLR9 agonist CMP-001 appeared to potentially reverse resistance to immune checkpoint inhibition in patients with metastatic melanoma.

At AACR 2018, Dr. Aung Naing of MD Anderson presented ECHO-203, the first data on epacadostat in combination with an anti–PD-L1 inhibitor.

At AACR 2018, Dr. Alexander Eggermont presented results of KEYNOTE-045/EORTC 1325-MG, in which melanoma patients with recurrence on placebo can receive pembrolizumab.

In this article, we review the published literature and evaluate secondary prevention strategies for nonmelanoma skin cancer. We also explore investigational therapies proposed for chemoprevention of nonmelanoma skin cancers.

The combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib with the MEK inhibitor binimetinib yielded improved progression-free survival over vemurafenib in patients with advanced BRAF V600–mutant melanoma.

At the NCCN Annual Conference in Orlando, Dr. April Salama discussed targeted treatment options in first- and second-line therapy for advanced melanoma.

Interventions can improve sun protection behaviors, but this does not necessarily correlate with skin cancer/melanoma outcomes, according to a review for the USPSTF.

The incidence of Merkel cell carcinoma, an aggressive neuroendocrine skin cancer, has grown rapidly since the disease was first described in 1972.

Medicial oncologist and melanoma expert Dr. Jeffrey Weber discusses the role of adjuvant immunotherapy in the setting of stage III melanoma.

The combination of selumetinib with dacarbazine did not offer improved survival outcomes over placebo/dacarbazine in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma.