Skin Cancer & Melanoma

The number of moles, or nevi, a patient had was not related to the likelihood that they had melanoma, according to the results of a new study.

A 90-year-old woman presents with a lesion in the right forearm. After further assessment, a biopsy is performed. What is your diagnosis?

The combination of TriMixDC-MEL and ipilimumab produced durable tumor responses in patients with pretreated advanced melanoma, according to a phase II study.

In light of the recent announcement by Vice President Joe Biden to infuse the US cancer research program with $1 billion, a so-called “Moon Shot” program, we are speaking today with Giulio Draetta, a clinician and cancer researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston, who leads that center’s Moon Shots program.

Adjuvant high-dose interferon alfa-2b did not improve survival in melanoma patients with single tumor–positive lymph nodes found with sentinel lymph node biopsy.

A median overall survival of longer than 2 years was achieved in a group of patients with metastatic melanoma assigned to treatment with the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib.

Women younger than 40 may be more likely to frequent indoor tanning, and those who do are between two and six times more likely to develop melanoma, according to a new study.

Long-term study results show that a wider surgical margin for cutaneous melanomas greater than 2-mm thick improved melanoma-specific survival vs a 1-cm margin.

In this review, we discuss current management strategies, as well as future directions, for the management of uveal and conjunctival melanoma.

There has been rapid progress in the treatment of metastasis associated with cutaneous melanoma, including impressive results achieved with targeted molecular therapies and immunotherapies, and it is possible (but still unproven) that patients with metastasis from conjunctival and eyelid melanomas may benefit from these new therapies.

The FDA recently expanded its approval of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to include the initial treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Could a new imaging technique that is able to detect the distant spread of melanoma to the lymph nodes help patients avoid potentially risky surgery?

A 32-year-old woman presents with a cutaneous nodule and a biopsy is performed. What is your diagnosis?

The combination of the attenuated oncolytic virus talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) and the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab shows activity and is well-tolerated by advanced melanoma patients.

A combination of cobimetinib and vemurafenib prolongs overall survival in melanoma patients with BRAF V600 mutations.

Today the FDA approved the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) as a single-agent frontline treatment for patients with BRAF wild-type advanced melanoma.

The novel immunotherapy combination of epacadostat plus pembrolizumab shows promising clinical activity in advanced melanoma patients.

A combination of pembrolizumab and low-dose ipilimumab appears to be active and to have a better safety profile than a combination of nivolumab and full-dose ipilimumab in advanced melanoma patients.

Early results from an ongoing trial suggest that pembrolizumab has promising activity in untreated melanoma patients with brain metastases.

Older men are more likely to be diagnosed with multiple primary melanomas and have worse cutaneous malignant melanoma–specific survival than men with a single primary melanoma.

Nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab are promising treatment options for patients with mucosal melanoma, according to a new study.

The expression of immune markers and T-cell subsets can help predict outcomes of sentinel lymph node–positive melanoma patients, according to a new study.

The checkpoint inhibitors pembrolizumab and nivolumab not only prolong survival in advanced melanoma patients but also maintain health-related quality of life.

Advanced melanoma patients successfully treated with a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab may endure severe side effects, but they do not suffer any clinically meaningful changes in health-related quality of life.

The FDA has approved the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib in combination with the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib for the treatment of advanced metastatic or unresectable BRAF-mutated melanoma.