Pembrolizumab in the adjuvant treatment of melanoma

03/2021

MUDr. Eugen Kubala

Onkologická klinika 1. LF UK a Fakultní Thomayerovy nemocnice, Praha

SUMMARY

Adjuvant therapy is considered the standard approach to the treatment of patients with locally advanced stage IIIA, IIIB and IIIC melanoma. The EORTC 1325-MG/KEYNOTE-045 study, which compared pembrolizumab with placebo, clearly demonstrated its efficacy. Long-term follow-up showed that 3-year relapse free survival (RFS) was achieved in 63.7 patients with pembrolizumab versus 44.1% in placebo patients (HR 0.56; 95% CI, 0.47-0.68; p < 0.001). This treatment has been shown to be highly safe with a low incidence of side effects. At the same time, the incidence of immunotherapy-related adverse events has been shown to be associated with better treatment outcomes than without them, especially in endocrine toxicity (p = 0.03). However, the absence of immunotherapy-related adverse events does not lead to a significant reduction in the efficacy of pembrolizumab over placebo.

Key words

pembrolizumab, melanoma, adjuvant therapy, side effects associated with immunotherapy