Melanoma

There are many new immunotherapeutics that have been approved or are in clinical and pre-clinical trials to expand our arsenal in the treatment of melanoma and other previously difficult to treat malignancies.

In this article, we summarize a large body of literature on such a tool (a non-invasive adhesive patch based gene expression test for LINC and PRAME) and provide a guide to primary care physicians on how to use this tool to improve pigmented lesion management by biopsying less while at the same time reducing the chance of missing melanomas.

The last couple of years have seen the beginning of a new era in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. This article focuses on BRAF inhibitors and immune modulators which have demonstrated an overall survival benefit, and the importance of limiting adverse events.

Melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer with a generally poor prognosis at Stage III-IV disease. Discussion centres around clinical trial data from phase I-III studies of Nivolumab (Opdivo®), a human monoclonal antibody which prevents immune inhibition by interacting with PD-1 on tumor cells.

Treatment of metastatic melanoma using traditional chemotherapy regimens has been disappointing. However, recent work with agents that modify the host’s immune system (e.g., interleukins) have provided limited but encouraging results. Interleukins are a group of molecules involved in immune cell signaling.