Patients with advanced melanoma skin cancer survive for longer without their disease progressing if they have been treated with a combination of two drugs, nivolumab and ipilimumab, than with either of these drugs alone. New results show that these patients also do better regardless of their age, stage of disease and whether or not they have a cancer-Driving mutation in the BRAF gene.
Conferences
Two-Drug Combination Significantly Improves Overall Survival in Patients With Melanoma
Latest results from a clinical trial using a combination of two targeted therapies—dabrafenib and trametinib—to treat advanced melanoma have shown that patients are living significantly longer with the combination therapy compared with patients treated with a single drug—vemurafenib. These findings were presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress.
What you don’t know about choroidal melanoma
New Orleans—Carol Shields, MD, of Wills Eye Hospital ocular oncology service, shared her advice for what to look out for when it comes to choridal melanoma during the Plenary Session at the American Academy of Optometry meeting in New Orleans.
Surgery for Advance Melanoma Extends Survival
New research suggests that for patients with melanoma that has spread to the abdomen, surgical removal of the tumor can extend survival.
The study was led by Dr. Gary Deutsch, now a surgical oncologist at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y. His team tracked outcomes for 1,600 patients, treated at some point between 1969 and 2014.