Melanoma (Issue 5)

With the continuously expanding landscape of treatment options for advanced and/or metastatic melanoma, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the patient-specific oncogenic drivers as a means of selecting treatments.

Although single-target inhibitors and have demonstrated significant clinical benefit, the toxicities are not limited to cancer cells alone and associated toxicities and adverse events are often observed.

The Weizmann Institute of Science recently revealed a new gene belonging to the tumor suppressor gene group, RASA2, which is driving a particular deadly subset of melanomas for patients with dysfunctioning RAS pathways.

A paper recently published online by a group at the University of Michigan details a mechanism by which epigenetic modulation can increase the number of tumor infiltrating CD8+ T cells and could potentially lead to increased immunotherapy response.

A Q&A with Keith T. Flaherty, MD.