Potential melanoma target bypasses therapeutic resistance to immune checkpoint blockers
Source: Medical Xpress, September 2022
Over the last decade, immune checkpoint blockers, or ICBs, have revolutionized treatment for various advanced cancers, including melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer that was considered largely incurable not long ago. However, three-fourths of advanced-melanoma patients are resistant to ICBs.
Now, in a report published in Nature Communications, researchers reveal a potential target—using the clinically approved drug ruxolitinib—to suppress ICB-resistant melanomas.
“Since ruxolitinib is clinically approved and being tested in patients with advanced solid tumors, non-small-cell lung cancer and triple-negative breast cancer, our study justifies further testing of ruxolitinib in patients with advanced melanoma that are resistant to ICBs," said Lewis Zhichang Shi, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Radiation Oncology.