Melanoma & Skin Cancer

Omid Hamid, MD, Chief, Translational Research and Immunotherapy, Director, Melanoma Therapeutics, The Angeles Clinic, discusses a recent trial investigating the combination of vemurafenib and atezolizumab in melanoma in patients with previously untreated BRAF-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Ashani Weeraratna, PhD, associate professor, Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program, member, The Wistar Institute Melanoma Research Center, discusses a study examining the effects of aging on Wnt/ß-catenin signaling in melanoma.

James Allison, chair of Immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses promising data regarding the use of immunotherapies in melanoma. Allison is particularly excited about a trial, presented at the Society of Melanoma Research Congress, which looked at the combination of PD-L1 inhibitors with a BRAF-targeted agent.

Tara C. Mitchell, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, discuses preliminary results from a phase I/11 study of epacadostat in combination with pembrolizumab.

James Allison, PhD, discusses the rapidly expanding field of immunotherapy in melanoma.

The FDA has requested additional data for the use of single-agent nivolumab in previously untreated patients with BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma.

Dirk Schadendorf, MD, Head of Department for Dermatology, Venerology und Allergology, University Hospital Essen, Germany, discusses the results from the phase III CheckMate 067 study, which looked at a combination immunotherapy regimen in advanced melanoma.

Robert Andtbacka, MD, discusses how the role of oncolytic immunotherapies continues to evolve in melanoma and gives a better understanding of what is on the horizon for the novel therapeutics.

The European Commission has approved the combination of vemurafenib (Zelboraf) and cobimetinib (Cotellic) as a treatment for patients with BRAF-positive metastatic or unresectable melanoma.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, deputy director, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, co-director of its Melanoma Program, head of Experimental Therapeutics, NYU Langone Medical Center, compares the efficacy of dabrafenib plus trametinib versus vemurafenib plus cobimetinib.

The FDA has expanded the approval for single-agent nivolumab (Opdivo) to include the frontline treatment of patients with BRAF wild-type advanced melanoma.

Treatment with the combination of vemurafenib and cobimetinib improved overall survival by 4.9 months compared with vemurafenib alone for patients with BRAF mutation-positive advanced melanoma.

A treatment regimen of pembrolizumab plus low-dose ipilimumab was tolerable and effective for patients with advanced melanoma.