This was studied in a phase 2 study, in patients with stage III or IV resectable melanoma patients. The results were presented at ESMO 2022 by Dr.Sapna Patel. The patients in intervention arm received 3 doses of pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA) before surgery and then completed 15 doses after the surgery.
There was an improvement in the event free survival in the neoadjuvant arm with hazard ratio of 0.58.
The median follow-up was of 14.7 months in this SWOG S1801 study. The hazard ratio corresponds to a 42% lower event rate in the patients receiving the neoadjuvant regimen with pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA).
More studies are needed to follow up on these results, to validate the outcome parameters and possibly in larger phase 3 randomized controlled studies. Nevertheless, the results from this study has created curiosity in the approach of partial neoadjuvant immunotherapy treatment of melanoma skin cancer.
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