Dr. Weber on Combination Strategies for BRAF-Mutant Melanoma

Jeffery S. Weber, MD, PhD, deputy director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, co-director of the Melanoma Program, and head of Experimental Therapeutics at NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses combination strategies for patients with BRAF-mutant melanoma.

There is an "urban legend" that patients who receive BRAF/MEK inhibition in the frontline setting will relapse. However, this is simply not true, Weber says. There is a plateau on the survival curve as researchers now have longer follow-up on survival from related studies. In the frontline and even in the second-line setting, there is a 35% plateau of survival at 3 to 4 years, implying that some patients, especially those with low-disease burden, may do very well with this regimen.

What is novel in the field is that the biomarker for the success of combined BRAF/MEK inhibition is low disease burden, low lactate dehydrogenase, and no brain metastases. This likely reflects a patient population that is immunologically responsive. It would suggest that these patients may have excellent outcomes with BRAF/MEK combinations, Weber adds.