Source: Moffitt Cancer Center, June 2025
While patients with melanoma metastases to the brain have historically had poor prognoses, the introduction of BRAF-targeted therapy and immunotherapy has improved survival rates.
However, that has not been the case for patients who have symptomatic brain metastases and/or are on steroids for their tumors. About one-third of melanoma patients with brain metastases experience neurologic side effects and/or require corticosteroids. The response rate to the immunotherapy combination treatment of nivolumab and ipilimumab for these symptomatic patients is 22%, with median progression-free survival of 1.2 months, compared to a response rate of 54% and median progression-free survival of over three years for patients with asymptomatic brain metastases.