Liquid Biopsies Reliably Predict Immunotherapy Outcomes in Melanoma Study
Source: Oncology News Central, March 2025
Among patients with advanced melanoma treated with ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo), decreasing values of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in tumor-informed liquid biopsies during the first 6 weeks of therapy were associated with improved survival outcomes, a recent study showed.
“This is an important finding, as immune-related adverse events [Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events] grade 3 or 4 occur in about 50% of the cases with ipilimumab and nivolumab,” explained study researcher Andrea Forschner, MD, associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University Hospital Tübingen in Germany. “Therefore, it might be important to know whether a patient is a responder or not before the 12 weeks of treatment are finished.”
Dr. Forschner and her team recently published the results of a study that tested whether tumor-informed liquid biopsies could predict response and disease relapse among patients with advanced melanoma treated with immune checkpoint blockade.