Melanoma & Skin Cancer | Specialty

The OncLive Melanoma & Skin Cancer condition center page is a comprehensive resource for clinical news and expert insights on various types of skin cancers, including melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and more. This section features news articles, interviews in written and video format, and podcasts that focus on unmet needs, treatment advances, and ongoing research in melanoma and other skin cancers.

Flaherty Provides Insight Into Future Combination Strategies in Metastatic Melanoma

May 14th 2014

Keith T. Flaherty, MD, discusses upcoming combination therapies being explored in melanoma, specifically those involving CDK4/6, BRAF/MEK, immune checkpoints, and other novel approaches.

Dr. Rosenberg Discusses the Curative Potential of Cancer Immunotherapy

May 13th 2014

Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute, discusses the curative potential of immunotherapy for patients with cancer.

Vemurafenib Combination Effective in Advanced BRAF-Mutant Melanoma

May 7th 2014

The combination of the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib with the investigational MEK inhibitor cobimetinib was safe and effective in treatment-naive patients with BRAFV600 mutation-positive metastatic melanoma.

FDA Grants Priority Review to PD-1 Inhibitor Pembrolizumab in Advanced Melanoma

May 6th 2014

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (MK-3475) as a treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma following progression on ipilimumab.

Novel Immunotherapeutic Safe and Effective in Early-Phase Melanoma Study

April 23rd 2014

A novel immunotherapeutic known as IMCgp100 induced clinical responses with manageable toxicity in patients with advanced melanoma

Long-Term Outcomes Support Sentinel-Node Biopsy for Staging Melanoma

April 22nd 2014

A 10-year follow-up study of regional melanoma staging strategies found that patients who underwent sentinel-node biopsies had significantly greater disease-free survival rates (DFSRs) compared with patients monitored through nodal observation.

Durable T-VEC Responses Fail to Prolong Survival in Updated Analysis

April 18th 2014

Talimogene laherparepvec significantly improved durable response rates but failed to extend overall survival in patients with advanced melanoma.

PD-L1 Predictive of Response to MK-3475 in Melanoma and NSCLC

April 7th 2014

PD-L1 levels adequately predict response and clinical outcomes for PD-1 inhibitor MK-3475 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma

T-VEC Promotes Tumor Shrinkage in Unresectable Melanoma

March 17th 2014

The oncolytic immunotherapeutic vaccine talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) promoted tumor shrinkage in 64% of patients with advanced melanoma, including a marked reduction in the size of uninjected metastatic lesions

Nivolumab Delivers Durable Remissions With Low Toxicity in Advanced Melanoma

March 14th 2014

Nivolumab, a PD-1-specific antibody, has been shown to produce long-term remissions with limited toxicity in patients with advanced melanoma, according to results from one of the longest follow ups to examine the drug.

Dr. Lewis on Sequencing Strategies in Melanoma

March 14th 2014

Karl Lewis, MD, medical oncologist, associate professor, University of Colorado, discusses sequencing strategies for the treatment of melanoma.

New Paradigms Emerge for Translating Immunotherapy Into Broad Clinical Use

March 14th 2014

Although breakthrough successes are generating a renaissance for anticancer immunotherapies, the framework for translating promising research results into clinical practice remains very much under construction.

ILI Provides Valuable Option for Inoperable Melanoma Metastases

March 4th 2014

As melanoma becomes more prevalent and more lethal in the United States, a multidisciplinary approach for treating inoperable in-transit metastases has proved to be a viable and valuable option.

Weber Explores Advances in Metastatic Melanoma

February 21st 2014

In an interview with OncLive, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, from the Moffitt Cancer Center, University of South Florida, Tampa, explored the utilization of molecular and immune-targeted therapies as treatments for patients with advanced melanoma.

Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Cancer: Inhibiting CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 With Monoclonal Antibodies

February 21st 2014

Inhibitory receptors such as anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death 1 (PD-1) expressed on tumor-specific T cells lead to compromised activation and suppressed effector functions such as proliferation, cytokine secretion, and tumor cell lysis.

Visualizing Cancer Cells With the Help of High-tech Eyewear

February 17th 2014

High-tech eyewear could soon help surgeons remove tumors from patients with breast cancer or melanoma by allowing them to see the margins of tumors more accurately when a dye is used to fluoresce a tumor's borders.

Anti-PD-1 Antibody MK-3475 Advances Into Multiple Tumor Types

February 7th 2014

Merck announced the signing of three separate clinical collaboration agreements to evaluate the potential of its investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 across multiple tumor types

The Role of Anti-PD-L1 Immunotherapy in Cancer

January 29th 2014

Immunotherapy has become an increasingly appealing therapeutic strategy for patients with cancer, with many late-stage clinical trials demonstrating overall survival (OS) advantages in melanoma and castrationresistant prostate cancer.

"N of 1" Research: Molecular Findings Create Urgency for New Drug Discovery Paradigm

January 13th 2014

There has been considerable discussion within the oncology literature during the past several years regarding the level of evidence required to consider a new antineoplastic agent an acceptable "standard-of-care" in routine disease management.

Dabrafenib/Trametinib Combination Approved for Advanced Melanoma

January 9th 2014

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to the combination of the MEK inhibitor trametinib and the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib as a treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma that harbors a BRAF V600E or V600K mutation.