Drug combination for stage IV melanoma shows success in CU Cancer Center trial
Source: Eurek Alert!, December 2022
A new multidrug treatment for patients with stage IV melanoma has proven effective after a three-year clinical trial at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
The study, which was designed and led by CU Cancer Center members, was aimed at overcoming the immune suppression that occurs in some patients with metastatic melanoma — skin cancer that has spread to organs like the lungs.
“We know immunotherapy is effective for many melanoma patients, but it doesn’t work for everybody. Sometimes the tumors suppress the immune system and prevent the immune reaction,” says CU Cancer Center member Martin McCarter, MD, who led the clinical trial. “We are very interested in trying to overcome this immune suppression, and by studying our melanoma patients at the cancer center we identified a particular cell population, called myeloid-derived suppressor cells, that plays a role in melanoma-induced immunosuppression.”