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Researchers have discovered early signs of clinical benefit while testing niraparib, a PARP inhibitor, in patients with advanced melanoma whose tumors had specific genetic changes impacting DNA repair. The single-arm, investigator-initiated phase II trial examined the effectiveness of niraparib in a select group of patients whose disease previously progressed after standard treatment such as immunotherapy, and BRAF/MEK-targeted therapies. The U.S. FDA approved tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy for advanced melanoma in patients who have previously received anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) antibody therapy, and if their tumors are V600 BRAF-mutant, a combination of BRAF and MEK inhibitors. "Despite these available, approved combination...

A research team is testing a new combination drug therapy that could both treat and prevent melanoma metastasis to the brain. Holmen first examined what causes melanoma cells to spread to the brain and identified focal adhesion kinase (FAK) as a potential target for new therapies. FAK is an enzyme that regulates cell growth, and, they found, is a major contributor to melanoma metastasis. "The window of time to treat a patient with brain metastasis is shortened because the average survival from time of diagnosis of brain metastasis is only about a year—even while using these other therapies." Holmen and...

Aserendipitous discovery may lead to a new way of fighting cancer – even tumors that are resistant to immunotherapy – by suppressing a mechanism that cancer cells use to evade the body’s immune system. “It all happened by coincidence,” explained study lead Professor Carmit Levy of Tel Aviv University, in a statement. “My lab studies both cancer and the effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun on our skin and body – both of which are known to suppress the immune system. Cancer suppresses approaching immune cells and solar radiation suppresses the skin's immune system.” “While in most cases,...

Patients with primary thyroid cancer who receive radioactive iodine therapy have an elevated risk for melanoma and other nonkeratinocyte skin cancers when limiting the cancer site to the head and neck, according to a study. Shawheen J. Rezaei and colleagues characterized the risk for subsequent melanoma and other nonkeratinocyte skin cancers in patients with primary thyroid malignant neoplasms. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were calculated to estimate the risk for subsequent cancer development. The researchers found that 45.5 percent of the 174,916 patients with primary thyroid cancer diagnosed from 2000 to 2019 had first-course treatment of some form of radiation. Following...

A clinical trial has shown that a new drug combination utilized before surgery completely eliminated or shrunk melanoma tumors in 70% of trial participants. The phase II clinical trial, NeoACTIVATE, enrolled patients with stage 3 melanoma. "We saw that about two-thirds of the patients in one arm of the trial had no remaining tumor at all at the time of their surgery," said Matthew S. Block, M.D., Ph.D. This was the first clinical trial to explore using the combination of targeted therapy and immunotherapy before surgery in patients with and without the type of melanoma that has a mutation in...

Immunotherapy before surgery for patients with metastatic melanoma appears to be especially successful. Some 59% of patients respond so well to this therapy that adjuvant treatment is no longer needed, according to the results of the NADINA study. Standard treatment for patients with metastatic skin cancer (melanoma stage III) consists of the removal of local lymph nodes, followed by a year of adjuvant treatment with immunotherapy or targeted therapy. "Despite that, we still see disease recurrence within three to five years in nearly half of these patients," Blank explains. The study showed neoadjuvant immunotherapy could induce a stronger and broader...

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (Gray News) – A 14-year-old from Virginia was crowned America’s Top Young Scientist for inventing a soap that treats skin cancer. According to a news release, Heman Bekele, a ninth grader at W.T. Woodson High School in Annandale, won the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge last week. Heman developed Melanoma Treating Soap, a compound-based bar of soap designed to treat skin cancer. Over the next five years, he hopes to refine his innovation and create a nonprofit organization that will distribute this low-cost solution to communities in need. The final product came out to a shockingly cheap...

In a world-first clinical trial, a multi-center study has found fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) from healthy donors are safe and show promise in improving response to immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma. Immunotherapy drugs stimulate a person's immune system to attack and destroy cancer. While they can significantly improve survival outcomes in those with melanoma, they are only effective in 40 to 50 percent of patients. Preliminary research has suggested that the human microbiome—the diverse collection of microbes in our body—may play a role in whether or not a patient responds. "In this study, we aimed to improve melanoma patients'...

Data from a national clinical trial shows that a striking 89% of patients with desmoplastic melanoma responded to immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) alone, suggesting that many patients could avoid the risk for toxicity from combination therapies and achieve cancer control with this approach to treatment. Desmoplastic melanoma is a subset of melanoma skin cancer that is caused by high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation damage and, therefore, a high number of tumor mutations that all contribute to aggressive disease development and growth. "Not all melanomas are the same, and they don't respond to treatments in the same degree," said Kari Kendra, MD,...

In mice with melanoma, probiotic bacteria travel from the gut and establish in tumors, where they directly stimulate immune cells to make cancer immunotherapy more effective, according to a study. The study showed Lactobacillus reuteri stimulates cancer-killing T cells by secreting a compound called indole-3-aldehyde, or I3A. When the researchers gave mice a diet rich in the amino acid tryptophan—which the bacteria convert to I3A—immunotherapy drugs had a stronger effect on restraining tumor size and prolonging survival. Several recent studies have found a link between probiotic supplements and immunotherapy response in melanoma patients. Compared to control mice, those given L....

Patients with high-risk melanoma who received the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab both before and after surgery to remove cancerous tissue had a significantly lower risk of their cancer recurring than similar patients who received the drug only after surgery. "It's not just what you give, it's when you give it. The S1801 study demonstrates the same treatment for resectable melanoma given before surgery can generate better outcomes," Patel said. "In this case, we used the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab." The mechanism of action of immune checkpoint inhibitors such as pembrolizumab is often described as "taking the brakes off" the immune system's...

Immunotherapies have improved outcomes of many patients with cancer, including melanoma. But these therapies work for only a subset of patients. Numerous studies are looking at improving responses, including research focusing on enhancing tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). TILs are immune cells in tumors that can recognize and attack the cancer cells but often there aren't enough of them or they're unable to harness a strong enough response to durably suppress tumor growth and spread. Researchers, led by Eric Lau, Ph.D., have identified a relatively natural way to increase the numbers and antitumor activities of TILs. Lau's team demonstrates how L-fucose, a...

Fewer cases of melanoma were observed among regular users of vitamin D supplements than among non-users, a new study finds. People taking vitamin D supplements regularly also had a considerably lower risk of skin cancer, according to dermatologists. Vitamin D plays a key role in the normal function of the human body, and it may also play a role in many diseases. The link between vitamin D and skin cancers has been studied abundantly in the past, but these studies have mainly focused on serum levels of calcidiol. Findings from these studies have been inconclusive and even contradictory at times,...

A new multidrug treatment for patients with stage IV melanoma has proven effective after a three-year clinical trial. The study was aimed at overcoming the immune suppression that occurs in some patients with metastatic melanoma—skin cancer that has spread to organs like the lungs. "We know immunotherapy is effective, but it doesn't work for everybody. Sometimes the tumors suppress the immune system and prevent the immune reaction," says Martin McCarter, MD. "We are very interested in trying to overcome this immune suppression, and by studying our melanoma patients at the cancer center we identified a particular cell population, called myeloid-derived...

A customized Moderna Inc. vaccine combined with a Merck & Co. cancer drug helped ward off the recurrence of the skin cancer melanoma after surgery in patients in a mid-stage clinical trial, the companies said. The companies said Tuesday the combination of Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine and Merck’s Keytruda cancer immunotherapy reduced patients’ risk of relapse or death by about 44%, versus Keytruda alone, in the 150-volunteer study. The results, which the companies said were statistically significant but haven’t been reviewed by independent scientists, suggest promise for an emerging but unproven class of vaccines that aim to treat diseases rather...

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...

Vitamin D levels affect overall survival for melanoma (skin cancer) patients, a new study has shown. Dermatology researchers discovered that those who were deficient in vitamin D (lower than 10ng/mL) following their melanoma diagnosis were twice as likely (hazard ratio 2.3) to have lower overall survival than those with vitamin D levels equal/greater than 10ng/mL. The retrospective study analyzed a cohort of 264 patients with invasive melanoma from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, to investigate whether vitamin D plays a protective role in melanoma survival. The study investigated the differences in overall survival and melanoma-specific survival between groups using statistical...

Researchers have discovered that treating patients who have late-stage treatment resistant melanoma with a combination of two existing drugs significantly increases their survival times. The drug repurposing trial focused on patients with end stage melanoma whose cancers had become resistant to frontline immunotherapy treatment, a class of drugs known as Immune Checkpoint Inhibiters (ICB). ICBs interfere with a cancer cells' ability to "hide" from the body's immune system allowing a patient's own body to fight cancer. The team found that by treating patients with a combination of two already approved chemotherapy drugs, Azacitidine and Carboplatin, they were able to re-sensitize...

Scientists analysed melanoma diagnosis rates among adults who ate the equivalent of 300g of any type of fish each week, including battered cod. They were compared against participants who consumed much less. Some even ate none. Results showed people who adhered official advice, which states a healthy diet includes at least two portions of fish a week, were up to a fifth more likely to get the cancer. Meanwhile, a separate US study found men consuming more than 430g of dairy per day — the equivalent of two cups of milk — are 25 per cent more likely to suffer...

Tumors from desmoplastic melanoma, a rare cancer most commonly found on the head or neck, can often be shrunk significantly before surgery by an immunotherapy known as PD-1 blockade, a result that may reduce the need for disfiguring surgery and radiation. "This study suggests that up-front treatment may spare some from disfiguring surgeries," said Dr. Kendra. Desmoplastic melanoma is a rare form of malignant skin cancer that occurs on sun-exposed areas of the body. It's a cancer in which local relapse is common, so the standard of care is surgery with wide excision margins followed by radiation therapy. These wide...