Dr. Pavlick on Adjuvant Immunotherapy in High-risk Melanoma

Anna C. Pavlick, DO, associate professor of hematology and medical oncology and medical director of the Clinical Trials Office at the Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the need for adjuvant immunotherapy in patients with high-risk melanoma.

These are patients who have stage IIb to IIIc or resected stage IV melanoma, Pavlick explains. These are patients in which clinicians are concerned with disease recurrence. Interferon, she adds, was the standard adjuvant treatment for many years, but now researchers are able to use the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy, which has been FDA approved to use in the adjuvant setting for patients with stage III disease.

Participating in clinical trials will ultimately change the therapeutic options that can be offered for patients and will also lower their risk of developing metastatic disease.