News from Annual Meeting 2016 for melanoma

Jean-Jacques Grob, MD of the Aix-Marseille University and APHM Hospital CHU Timone, Marseille, France, discusses the latest updates from ASCO 2016 for melanoma. First, he highlights on the news that studies have shown very promising results in the combination of BRAF and MEK inhibitors at three years. However, it still remains unclear as to whether or not results will show a plateau, and the studies now seem to be at the same range as immunotherapy. He believes that we can now ask the question of whether we should start treating BRAF mutated patients with combination of BRAF and MEK, or alternatively with anti PD-1 given that studies have shown similar results. He proceeds, introducing the very interesting results of the combination of anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA4). The studies showed that the combination is much better than ipilimumab, with the first rounding showing that it is better than nivolumab alone. Next, he discusses the NRAS mutant patient study results. He believes that these are important cases, involving 15-20% of the NRAS patient population, but the study was presented with limited tools to deal with the disease. In the first trial involving the use of MEK inhibitors, results showed a benefit in terms of progression-free survival (PFS) but unfortunately not in overall survival (OS). Recorded at the 2016 World Congress on Cancers of the Skin (WCCS) and the Congress of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology (EADO) in Vienna, Austria.