Skin Cancer & Melanoma

In this article, we review the role of baseline tumor size in response and survival on traditional and contemporary therapies for the treatment of locoregional and distant melanoma recurrences.

Individuals who develop frequent basal cell carcinomas may have an increased prevalence of germline mutations in DNA repair genes and an increased malignancy risk.

Mogamulizumab (Poteligeo) is indicated for relapsed or refractory mycosis fungoides or Sézary syndrome following at least one prior systemic therapy.

The combination of pembrolizumab and a TLR9 agonist known as SD-101 showed promising activity in patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Active surveillance could help lead to early excision of melanoma, and thus better outcomes, in patients with CLL.

Baseline levels of lactate dehydrogenase are significantly associated with progression-free survival outcomes in patients with BRAF V600–mutated metastatic melanoma.

Patients treated with anti–PD-1 or anti–PD-L1 inhibitors in clinical trials were successfully retreated with the inhibitors after discontinuing the treatment.

A set of reproducible biomarkers are associated with better response rates to anti–PD-1 therapy in patients with advanced melanoma.

Treatment of high-risk melanoma with adjuvant bevacizumab following resection improves disease-free survival over standard observation, but not overall survival.

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.