How New Research Is Redefining Melanoma Treatment
Source: Medscape, January 2025
The treatment landscape for melanoma saw significant advancements in 2024, as highlighted by Elisa Funck-Brentano, MD, PhD, from Ambroise-Paré Hospital in Paris, France, during her presentation at the 2024 Dermatology Days of Paris conference in Paris.
Checkpoint Inhibitors in Neoadjuvant Therapy
The standard approach for treating resectable stage III melanoma with locoregional metastases has traditionally involved surgery followed by adjuvant therapy. However, the phase 3 NADINA trial, published in 2024, is driving a paradigm shift. The trial demonstrated that bi-immunotherapy with ipilimumab and nivolumab administered before surgery, followed by tailored adjuvant therapy based on pathologic response, significantly outperformed nivolumab monotherapy in both event-free survival and metastasis-free survival.
“Neoadjuvant therapy provides the added benefit of assessing histological or pathological response by evaluating the percentage of viable tumor cells, with a major pathological response defined as the presence of 10% or less viable tumor cells,” explained Funck-Brentano.