Posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Efforts to identify effective therapeutic strategies for patients with anti–PD-L1 refractory melanoma have investigated the clinical efficacy of adding the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab to the immunotherapy mix. According to the results of the phase I/II KEYMAKER-U02A study, presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (Abstract 9506), additional treatment combinations should be explored to successfully surpass the protocol-prespecified criteria for enrollment expansion, explained Reinhard Dummer, MD, of University Hospital Zurich, and colleagues.
A total of 100 patients with stage III or IV melanoma were recruited for the study. All patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment arms. Patients in arm 1 received pembrolizumab, the monoclonal antibody quavonlimab, and the TIGIT-targeting antibody vibostolimab (n = 40). Patients in arm 2 were treated with pembrolizumab, quavonlimab, and the tyrosine kinase inhibitor lenvatinib (n = 40). Patients in arm 3 received pembrolizumab and all-trans retinoic acid (n = 20).
The study authors reported objective response rates of 18%, 28%, and 0% for patients in treatment arms 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The median progression-free survival was reported as 2.1 months, 6.2 months, and 2.1 months for patients in treatment arms 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The median overall survival was 17.9 months for patients in treatment arm 2 and was not reached for patients in treatment arms 1 and 3. Furthermore, treatment-related adverse events were experienced by 88% of patients in arm 1, 95% of patients in arm 2, and 75% of patients in arm 3.
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit coi.asco.org.