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The following is a summary of “Estimating Long-Term Survivorship Rates Among Patients With Resected Stage III/IV Melanoma: Analyses From CheckMate 238 and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer 18071 Trials,” published in the October 2024 issue of Oncology by Weber et al.  

Standard-of-care treatments for patients with resected stage III/IV melanoma include immuno-oncology (IO) agents, nivolumab (NIVO), and ipilimumab (IPI).    

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to estimate cure rates among patients treated with NIVO or IPI.    

They applied mixture cure models (MCMs) to patient-level recurrence-free survival data from CheckMate 238 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02388906) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) 18071 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00636168).    

The results showed estimated cure rates of 48.3% (95% CI, 41.8 to 54.9) with NIVO and 38.2% (95% CI, 32.7 to 44.1) with IPI in CheckMate 238. In EORTC 18071, the estimated cure rates were 38.0% (95% CI, 32.1 to 44.2) with IPI and 29.2% (95% CI, 24.4 to 34.6) with placebo. The odds of cure were significantly higher with NIVO compared to placebo (OR, 2.33 [95% CI, 1.49 to 3.65]).    

They concluded that both NIVO and IPI adjuvant immunotherapy treatments for resected melanoma showed higher cure rates than placebo, with NIVO yielding the highest cure rate, while IPI demonstrated consistent results across trials despite variations in staging and dosing. 

Source: ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.24.00237