A groundbreaking clinical trial reveals a promising combination immunotherapy that could dramatically improve survival rates for advanced melanoma patients. The seven-year study showed over 50% of patients achieved long-term disease control, a remarkable improvement from the previous 16-week survival expectation. Researchers from the Melanoma Institute Australia are confident this treatment could become the new standard of care for patients with brain metastases. The research, published in Lancet Oncology, offers renewed hope for those facing this deadly form of skin cancer.
"We are now confident these patients are cured, a term not
used lightly in cancer." - Professor Georgina Long, Melanoma Institute
Australia
Combination immunotherapy may cure patients with deadly advanced
skin cancer
A combination immunotherapy may help cure a
majority of patients with melanoma -- a deadly skin cancer -- that has spread
to the brain, revealed a seven-year follow-up results from a clinical trial on
Tuesday.
Key Points
1 Combination immunotherapy achieves 51% long-term survival in
advanced melanoma
2 Brain metastasis patients show significant treatment response
3 Seven-year clinical trial proves breakthrough cancer treatment
strategy
The trial, published today in the journal Lancet Oncology,
showed that more than 50 per cent of patients given combination immunotherapy
as first-line treatment achieved long-term disease control. Currently, patients
with brain metastases -- which account for 30-40 per cent of patients with
Stage 4 melanoma -- only survive for around 16 weeks.
Professor Georgina Long AO, Medical Director of Melanoma
Institute Australia said the combination immunotherapy led to the overall
survival of 48 per cent of patients, which then increased to 51 per cent in
patients given the treatment upfront.
“This proves we have achieved long-term disease control in this
group of advanced melanoma patients,” said Long AO, who is also the lead author
of the study.
“We are now confident these patients are cured, a term not used
lightly in cancer. This combination immunotherapy should now become standard of
care for melanoma patients with brain metastasis,” she said.
The randomised, phase 2 trial conducted between 2014 and 2017,
enrolled 79 patients. Of these 36 were given combination checkpoint inhibitor
immunotherapy (anti-PD-1 plus anti-CTLA-4) and 43 were prescribed single-agent
immunotherapy (nivolumab).
The results, after a follow-up of seven-years, show
progression-free survival rate was 42 per cent with ipilimumab plus nivolumab,
compared to 15 per cent with nivolumab alone. Overall survival was 48 per cent
and 26 per cent respectively.
In patients treated upfront, or as first-line treatment, the
seven-year progression-free survival rate was 47 per cent with the combination
immunotherapy and 14 per cent with the single agent, with overall survival 51
per cent and 29 per cent respectively.
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