SKIN CANCERS

Georgina V. Long, BSc, PhD, MBBS, FRACP, discusses the current treatment options that are approved around the world for patients with advanced melanoma. These treatments include both immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, and targeted therapies.

The FDA granted approval to countless treatments across cancer types throughout 2019 until the end of the year, with a final approval on December 31^st for the first BRCA targeted therapy in pancreatic cancer. Following the excitement for a new year of further advances, Targeted Oncology followers on Twitter shared their thoughts on some of the most impactful FDA approvals in 2019.

Early-stage skin cancers that remain localized are often successfully treated through a variety of surgical techniques as well as radiation therapy, photodynamic therapy, and topical chemotherapy, but advanced cases that are beyond surgery may respond to immunotherapies. This setting will be discussed during the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s 34th Annual Meeting.

In a unanimous vote, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA is in favor of the benefit-risk profile of tazemetostat for the treatment of patients with metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma who are not eligible for curative intent surgery, according to a press release from Epizyme, Inc., manufacturer of the drug.

The Association of Community Cancer Centers has partnered with the AIM at Melanoma Foundation to develop resources through its Multidisciplinary Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma Care education project to help provide physicians with more information to guide them in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with this type of nonmelanoma skin cancer, according to a press release from ACCC.

The combination of atezolizumab, cobimetinib, and vemurafenib reduced the risk of disease progression or death compared with placebo in patients with BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma, meeting the primary endpoint of progression-free survival in the phase III IMspire150 study, according to a press release from Roche.

The FDA has granted a Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation to ADP-A2M4 for the treatment of patients with synovial sarcoma, according to a press release from Adaptimmune Therapeutics, developers of the agent.

Treatment with immunotherapy has become ingrained in the standard of care for treating patients with melanoma, but investigators continue to research new combinations and treatment strategies that can improve patients outcomes. One approach that has generated a great deal of interest and is a significant focus of ongoing trials involves adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy, according to Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD.

The signal transduction inhibitor tipifarnib induced disease control in all patients with HRAS-mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and a high variant allele frequency, according to preliminary results of a phase II trial presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research–National Cancer Institute–European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

Adil Daud, MD, compares the roles of immunotherapy versus dabrafenib plus trametinib targeted therapy combinations in patients with advanced melanoma. The latter combination is appropriate and even preventative in select patients, but the decision between checkpoint immune therapy and immunotherapy comes down to what is best for each patient.

In patients whose solid<strong> </strong>tumors harbor a mutation in <em>KRAS </em>G12C, therapy with MRTX849 has produced promising responses and acceptable toxicity across 3 tumors types, according to data presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research&ndash;National Cancer Institute&ndash;European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

In a Targeted Oncology live case-based peer perspectives discussion, Mark Agulnik, MD, and Simon S. Yoo, MD, discussed with a group of physicians the staging criteria and the options for treatment for patients with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.

The combination of nivolumab with ipilimumab showed no statistically significant benefit in patients with stage IIIB/C/D or stage IV melanoma compared with nivolumab alone in the phase III CheckMate 915 study, missing the co-primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival&nbsp; in patients with &lt;1% PD-L1 expression in their tumor cells, according to a press release from Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Thomas Marron, MD, discusses the rationale for investigating immunotherapy discontinuation in patients with melanoma.