The Future of Metastatic and Unresectable Melanoma Treatment
January 4th 2024The panel concludes their discussion with a call for continued research and collaboration, emphasizing the need for more understanding of targeted therapies, monitoring tools like ctDNA, and ongoing development in the field of BRAF mutant melanoma treatment.
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Key Data on Combination Immunotherapies in BRAF-Mutated Melanoma with Brain Metastases
January 4th 2024Doctors discuss the effectiveness of different treatment combinations for patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma and brain metastases, highlighting that consideration of patient preferences is essential in making treatment decisions.
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Treatment Approaches For Patients With BRAF-Mutated Melanoma and Symptomatic Brain Metastases
December 21st 2023Experts discuss treatment of patients with BRAF-mutated melanoma and symptomatic brain metastases, detailing radiation therapy, corticosteroid use, and the choice between BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy and immunotherapy.
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Treatment Approaches For Patients With BRAF-Mutated Melanoma and Asymptomatic Brain Metastases
December 21st 2023For patients with BRAF-mutated melanoma with asymptomatic brain metastases, immunotherapy, particularly the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab, is the preferred treatment option due to its effectiveness and durability, as supported by the seven-year follow-up data from the CHECKMATE 204 trial.
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Panelists discuss the potential benefits of rechallenging patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma with BRAF/MEK inhibitors after a break from treatment, especially for those who initially responded well, and emphasizing the success of this approach in some cases, while highlighting the importance of monitoring and utilizing ctDNA tracking for more informed decision-making.
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The 7-year follow-up data for encorafenib/binimetinib showing that around 21% of patients remained progression-free supports BRAF/MEK inhibition as a later treatment option after immunotherapy failure, but doctors are reluctant to stop BRAF/MEK inhibitors given lack of data, even in those patients doing well long-term on the medications with minimal toxicity.
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Frontline Treatment Options for Patients With BRAF-Mutated Metastatic Melanoma
November 30th 2023Experts discuss a preference for ipilimumab/nivolumab as the frontline immunotherapy for patients with BRAF-mutant metastatic melanoma given its proven long-term efficacy but acknowledge nivolumab/relatlimab as an option with less toxicity, especially adrenal insufficiency.
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Factors Influencing Treatment Decision-Making In Patients With BRAF-Mutated Metastatic Melanoma
November 30th 2023Beyond symptoms, doctors consider the psychosocial factors impacting treatment access and adherence, like insurance coverage, cost, family support, and preexisting conditions, when deciding between immunotherapy and targeted therapy for patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma.
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Treatment Options for Patients With Metastatic Melanoma With a BRAF Mutation
November 21st 2023For patients with BRAF-mutant metastatic melanoma, doctors assess symptoms and disease status to determine if they should start treatment with combination immunotherapy, or 8-12 weeks of BRAF/MEK targeted therapy before switching to immunotherapy, which offers the possibility of durable responses or cure.
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The panelists emphasize the importance of obtaining tissue for BRAF-mutation testing and dedicated tissue tracking in patients with metastatic melanoma, with immunohistochemistry followed by confirmatory next-generation sequencing, and discuss the promise of liquid biopsies like ctDNA as a future biomarker tracking modality.
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Best Practices for Biomarker Testing in Metastatic Melanoma
November 14th 2023When a patient with metastatic melanoma patient tests negative for the BRAF V600E mutation, doctors recommend sending the sample for next-generation sequencing testing which can take 2-3 weeks, during which time they may start immunotherapy if the patient has aggressive disease, but ideally should wait for results to guide treatment.
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Dr. Postow on OS Results of CheckMate-069 Study
April 18th 2016Michael Postow, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the overall survival (OS) results of the CheckMate-069 study, which investigated the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of patients with melanoma.
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