Exploring Immunotherapy Resistance: Impact on Treatment Decisions in Melanoma
Source: OncLive, January 2024
This is a video synopsis/summary of an OncLive Insights® involving Afreen Shariff, MD, MBBS; Javid Moslehi, MD; and Nikhil Khushalani, MD.
This segment discusses how concerns about immune resistance affect optimal timing of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for melanoma. Khushalani explains that with adjuvant treatment for resected disease, the goal is preventing metastases from micrometastatic disease. Despite therapy, some patients still experience relapse while on adjuvant therapy.It is unclear whether relapse during adjuvant therapy represents primary resistance or what the significance is of the time interval between completing adjuvant treatment and relapse.
Currently, the field arbitrarily uses a 6-month interval after finishing adjuvant anti–PD-1 therapy to distinguish patients more likely to benefit from repeat immune checkpoint blockade (relapse?> 6 months later) vs those who may have primary refractory disease (relapse within 6 months). Further research is needed to better define these patient cohorts and resistance patterns.