Dr. Hamid on TMB as a Biomarker for Immunotherapy Response in Melanoma

Omid Hamid, MD, director of the Melanoma Center and Phase I Immuno-Oncology Program at The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute, discusses the utility of tumor mutational burden (TMB) as a biomarker for response to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma.

TMB is not just for melanoma, says Hamid. By examining TMB, investigators have done a significant job in helping to understand which patients will respond best to immunotherapy across a multitude of tumor types. Investigators have looked at high TMBs to determine response to immunotherapy within the context of CTLA-4 and PD-1 inhibitors; several papers have analyzed this. For example, an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Alexandra Snyder, MD, head of Translational Oncology at Merck, looked at TMB for CTLA-4 response, says Hamid.

It is known that TMB for PD-1 response is important, which can be seen by the FDA approval of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients high TMB; this marker is an indicator of a patient who is going to have a higher response rate to immunotherapy, concludes Hamid.