Skin Cancer/Melanoma

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) monitoring is clinically valid in predicting whether patients with unresectable, metastatic BRAF-mutant melanoma will benefit from dabafenib (Tafinlar) alone or in combination with trametinib (Mekinist).

Healthcare providers should not base cancer care with immune checkpoint inhibitors on gender, according to recent study findings.

May is Skin Cancer Awareness month. What are some of the important conversations nurses should be having with their patients about the disease?

Compared to the general population, survivors of childhood cancer who live 5 or more years from diagnosis are at a higher risk for skin cancer.

Combination therapy has been the biggest recent advance in the melanoma space, but there is still more work to be done, according to Douglas B. Johnson, MD.

Each type of cancer treatment has its own adverse event (AE) profile, and BRAF and MEK inhibitors are no different.

Combining two checkpoint blockades can be very efficacious in treating metastatic melanoma, but the benefits come with increased risk of adverse events, too.

The FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with resected, high-risk stage III melanoma.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of recurrent locally advanced or metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma in adult and children.

Rapid changes in the treatment landscape for melanoma have prompted the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) to issue updated consensus guidelines to help clinicians stratify patients, choose optimal treatment regimens, and manage immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in patients with stage II to IV disease.

The fast pace of development in the immunotherapy and targeted therapy space has outstripped the availability of head-to-head comparative data for adjuvant melanoma treatment. Therefore, Hussein Tawbi, MD, PhD, recommended for healthcare professionals to communicate the relative merits and risks of both options to patients and making a shared decision.

The combination use of adjuvant dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus trametinib (Mekinist) has continued to show a significant relapse-free survival benefit among patients with resected stage III BRAF-mutant melanoma.

The FDA has approved the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab (Libtayo) for the treatment of patients with metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) or patients with locally advanced CSCC who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted priority review to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of adults and children with recurrent locally advanced or metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare skin cancer.

The FDA has approved the combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib (Braftovi) and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib (Mektovi) for the treatment of patients with BRAF-mutant unresectable or metastatic melanoma, as detected by an FDA-approved test.

Surveillance of potentially cancerous skin lesions is key in early detection and treatment of the disease, which vastly improves outcomes.

The FDA has approved the combined use of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) in the adjuvant setting for patients with BRAF V600E– or V600K–positive stage III melanoma following complete resection.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a biologics license application (BLA) for cemiplimab, a PD-1 inhibitor, for use in the treatment of patients with metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) or patients with locally advanced CSCC who are not eligible for surgery.

Incidences of merkel cell carcinoma, a rare skin cancer, increased 95% between 2000 and 2013, and are expected to rise further in the future due to the aging US population.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 43% in patients with resected, high-risk stage III melanoma, results from phase III of the EORTC 1325-MG/KEYNOTE-054 trial showed.

BLU-667 appeared to be well-tolerated and had broad clinical benefit among patients with advanced, RET-altered solid tumors who progressed on prior therapies, according to study findings from a phase I clinical trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2018.

Behavioral counseling interventions are of moderate benefit in increasing sun protection behaviors in children, adolescents, and young adults with fair skin types.

The FDA has approved a supplemental biologics license application to add a 4-week dosing schedule for nivolumab (Opdivo) across several of the PD-1 inhibitor’s indications.

Many adolescent and young adult (AYA) survivors of cancer end up "lost to follow-up," according to recent research. Nurses charged with patient education should take heed, and be sure to stress the importance of follow-up care to their AYA patients and their families.

Patients whose cancers have metastasized to the brain or central nervous system are often excluded from clinical trials, but now, new guidelines may help researchers identify appropriate clinical trials in which these people may be included.

Researchers have recently discovered that immunotherapy agents have potential to effectively treat desmoplastic melanoma, even though the dense tissue associated with this rare cancer would seem to preclude it.

The common skin cream fluorouacil 5%, when applied for 2 to 4 weeks, has been shown to reduce the risk for squamous cell carcinoma for up to a year, according to a study published in JAMA Dermatology.

The FDA has granted priority review to a supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for use of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) in combination as an adjuvant treatment for patients with BRAFV600E– or V600K–positive stage III melanoma following complete resection.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an adjuvant treatment for patients with completely resected melanoma with lymph node involvement or metastatic disease.

Neoadjuvant treatment with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) demonstrated almost a tripling in objective response rate (ORR) compared with the PD-1 inhibitor alone but at the cost of significant added grade 3 adverse events (AEs) for patients with high-risk resectable melanoma, according to a small study presented at the 2017 SITC Annual Meeting.