ESMO 2019: Dr. Hamid Discusses Exciting Immunotherapy Data in Melanoma

Source: OncLive, November 2019

Omid Hamid, MD, director of Research and Immuno-Oncology at The Angeles Clinic, discusses exciting immunotherapy data presented at the 2019 ESMO Congress.

Two-year follow-up data from a phase II trial (NCT02211131) evaluating neoadjuvant talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC; Imlygic) in patients with resectable melanoma demonstrated an improvement in 2-year relapse-free survival (RFS; HR, 0.75) and overall survival (OS; HR, 0.49) with T-VEC versus surgery alone. Although the drug is approved for use as a single agent in the treatment of patients with locally advanced, unresectable melanoma, it is also being evaluated in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, says Hamid.

In the advanced setting, adjuvant therapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) alone or in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) was evaluated in patients with stage IV melanoma with no evidence of disease in the phase II IMMUNED trial (NCT02523313). At a median follow-up of 28.4 months, there was a significant improvement in RFS with nivolumab alone versus placebo (HR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.36-0.88) and with the combination versus placebo (HR, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.13-0.41).