Adding New Vaccine Type to Leading Immunotherapy Dramatically Reduced Melanoma Recurrence
Source: NYU Langone Health, April 2023
The combination of an experimental mRNA vaccine with an immunotherapy reduced the likelihood of melanoma recurring or causing death by 44 percent when compared to immunotherapy alone, a new clinical trial shows.
Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, the randomized phase 2b trial involved men and women who had surgery to remove melanoma from lymph nodes or other organs and were at high risk of the disease returning in sites distant from the original cancer.
Among 107 study subjects who were injected with both the experimental vaccine, called mRNA-4157/V940, and the immunotherapy pembrolizumab, the cancer returned in 24 subjects (22.4 percent) within 3 years of follow-up, compared with 20 out of 50 (40 percent) who received only pembrolizumab.