Immunotherapy Particularly Effective Against Aggressive Hereditary Melanoma, Study Reports

Source: Immuno-oncology News, December 2018

Patients with hereditary melanoma associated with mutations in the CDKN2A gene respond well to immunotherapy, possible due to an increased mutational load in these tumors, a study suggests.

The study, “Efficacy of novel immunotherapy regimens in patients with metastatic melanoma with germline CDKN2A mutations,” was published in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

People with inherited mutations in the CDKN2A gene — which has the instructions to produce two proteins involved in the suppression of tumor development — have a more than 65 times higher risk of developing melanoma.