Patients with high-risk melanoma had better quality of life on pembrolizumab than on standard immunotherapy regimens

Medical Xpress / SWOG Cancer Research Network / JAMA Oncology ^ | Nov. 23, 2022 | Joseph M. Unger, Ph.D. et al

[ConservativeMind]

Patients with high-risk stage III-IV melanoma who received pembrolizumab after their surgery reported a better quality of life than patients who received the previous standard-of-care treatment with either ipilimumab or high-dose interferon.

Researchers on the trial had recently reported the primary clinical results which showed that patients on the study's pembrolizumab arm had a longer time before their disease recurred than patients on either of the other two treatments. The new quality-of-life findings come from a planned analysis of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) collected during the trial.

The primary endpoint for the quality-of-life analysis was the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy—Biologic Response Modifiers—Trial Outcome Index (FACT-BRM-TOI). This measure combines multiple domains of the experience of patients receiving immunotherapy treatment, including measures of their physical, social, emotional, functional, and cognitive well-being. Among patients on the trial who completed these PRO questionnaires, by 13 weeks after the start of treatment the mean scores between the arms had greatly diverged: the mean FACT-BRM-TOI score on the pembrolizumab arm was 90.3, while the mean score on the control arm was 80.6. Higher scores indicate better quality of life, and this difference of nearly 10 points was statistically significant and was considered clinically meaningful.

"The key difference is that our study compared pembrolizumab to an active control which had substantial adverse impacts on quality of life. When compared back to back, the patterns of quality of life for patients on the pembro arms of both studies were quite similar.

"My interpretation is that quality-of-life scores may not be that different when treatment options have minimal severe side effects (pembro versus placebo, e.g. KEYNOTE 054). But when treatment options vary in their rates of severe toxicity or discontinuation due to side effects (S1404), quality-of-life scores may favor the less severe treatment.

[ConservativeMind]

Some hopeful news for melanoma patients.

[ConservativeMind]

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