Pembrolizumab Yields High Response Rates for Patients With Unresectable Metastatic Desmoplastic Melanoma
Source: OncLive, April 2023
Patients with unresectable metastatic desmoplastic melanoma, a rare amelonotic subtype of cutaneous melanoma, achieved high response rates when treated with single-agent pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the SWOG S1512 trial (NCT02775851), according to data presented during the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting.
“Based on these data, single-agent, anti-PD1 immunotherapy should be considered the first-line treatment of choice for most patients with unresectable desmoplastic melanoma,” Kari Kendra, MD, PhD, said in a presentation. Kendra is a a professor of medicine and the director of cutaneous oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
Patients with unresectable disease in cohort B (n = 27) experienced an overall response rate (ORR) of 89% (95% CI, 71%-98%), with 9 complete responses (CRs; 33%; 95% CI, 17%-54%; P < 0.001), meeting the study’s primary end point of clinical CR assessed per RECIST 1.1 by passing the prespecified threshold of a 20% CR rate. Additionally, 1 patient had stable disease and stopped treatment after 5 cycles to undergo resection and the patient achieved a pathologic CR.1