Neoadjuvant T-VEC May Reduce Recurrence in Operable Melanoma
Source: OncLive, July 2019
Neoadjuvant treatment with the oncolytic immunotherapeutic agent talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC; Imlygic) led to significant improvement in 1-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) for patients with resectable advanced melanoma compared with surgery alone, a randomized trial showed.1
At 1 year, 33.5% of patients who received preoperative T-VEC plus surgery remained recurrence free, as compared with 21.9% of patients who had surgery only (HR, 0.73; 80% CI, 0.56-0.93; P = .048). A sensitivity analysis that excluded positive surgical margins as an RFS event produced a larger difference in favor of neoadjuvant therapy (HR, 0.63; 80% CI, 0.47-0.83; P = .024).
More patients randomized to T-VEC were alive at 1 year (95.9% vs 85.8%; HR, 0.47; 80% CI, 0.27-0.82; P = .076), but the difference did not reach statistical significance, as reported at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.