Dr. Stilwill on Adjuvant Advances in Melanoma

Joseph Stilwill, MD, medical oncologist, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses adjuvant advances in the treatment of patients with melanoma.

The most exciting advances in treating patients with melanoma have been in the adjuvant setting, says Stilwill. This includes patients with BRAF-positive melanoma as well as the overall population. BRAF and MEK inhibition in addition to anti—PD-1 therapy have shown significant benefit in the adjuvant setting. These therapeutic advances are not only more efficacious than previous agents, but are less toxic than prior adjuvant therapies.

Updates from the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting confirmed what physicians knew to be true in practice. Stilwill says that completion lymph node dissection is most likely not necessary for most patients with sentinel lymph node positive disease. Additionally, updates from the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting showed that the 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer Staging System holds up to external validation, says Stilwill.