Dr. Kaufman on the Potential of T-VEC for Advanced Melanoma

In an interview at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) meeting on Advances in Cancer Immunotherapy held in Princeton, NJ, Howard L. Kaufman, MD, FACS, Chief Surgical Officer, Associate Director for Clinical Science, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, discusses the use of oncolytic viruses for the treatment of advanced melanoma.

Kaufman has been investigating talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC), a herpes simplex virus-1 oncolytic vaccine. This agent has the potential to mediate tumor reduction by directly killing the tumor cells after it is injected and stimulating an immune response, says Kaufman.

A recent large, randomized phase III study demonstrated that T-VEC induced a durable response rate in patients with advanced melanoma, when compared to the control arm. Further studies are underway combining T-VEC with other agents, including checkpoint inhibitors, says Kaufman.

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