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Skin cancer

Golden age of melanoma therapy

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 12, page 1 (2015)Cite this article

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We have reached a golden era in oncology with exciting rapid developments in immunotherapy and targeted therapies that are providing significant survival improvements. Two papers recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine exemplify progress in the oncology field, and highlight new standards of treatment only a couple of years after other first-line therapies were approved in this setting, illustrating the speed at which these therapies have galvanized our treatment armamentarium.

The global incidence of melanoma continues to increase, and although patients treated with the monoclonal antibody anti-CTLA-4 targeted agent ipilimumab have demonstrated improvements in both response rate and survival, the median duration of these responses is often less than 1 year. Although the use of combination therapy with BRAF and MEK inhibitors have provided good responses, only 40% of patients who harbour a BRAF V600 mutation benefit from such an approach. Thus, there remains an unmet medical need for improved therapies.

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References

  1. Robert, C. et al. Nivolumab in previously untreated melanoma without BRAF mutation. N. Engl. J. Med. 10.1056/NEJMoa1412082

  2. Robert, C. et al. Improved overall survival in melanoma with combined dabrafenib and trametinib. N. Engl. J. Med. 10.1056/NEJMoa1412690

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Authors
  1. Lisa Hutchinson
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Gibney, G. T. et al. Paradoxical oncogenesis—the long-term effects of BRAF inhibition in melanoma. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 10, 390–399 (2013)

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Hutchinson, L. Golden age of melanoma therapy. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 12, 1 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2014.219

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