SITC issues guideline update about immunotherapy for melanoma

ByMatthew Shinkle

Fact checked byMindy Valcarcel, MS

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer has issued an update to its melanoma clinical practice guideline.

Developed by SITC’s Melanoma Immunotherapy Guideline Expert Panel, the revision is the third version of SITC’s melanoma clinical guidance, initially released in 2013 and later updated in 2018.

Melanoma sign — An updated melanoma guideline from SITC includes indications for cutaneous melanoma and guidance on rare subtypes of the disease.

The update — published in Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer — is the first guideline from the organization covering immunotherapy indications for cutaneous melanoma, as well as certain rare subtypes of the disease. The update also includes guidance on the availability of novel immune checkpoint inhibitors developed over the past decade for the treatment of cutaneous melanoma.

Anna C. Pavlick

“Immunotherapy has transformed the standard of care for cutaneous melanoma in the adjuvant and unresectable/metastatic settings, with new data suggesting a role for [immune checkpoint inhibitor] therapy in the neoadjuvant setting as well,” Anna C. Pavlick, DO, MBA, founding director of the cutaneous oncology program at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian and co-chair of the SITC Melanoma Immunotherapy Guideline Expert Panel, said in a press release.

The advisory panel formed to “generate evidence- and consensus-based recommendations to help clinicians select the appropriate immunotherapeutic regimens based on careful consideration of disease and patient characteristics,” according to the release.

The changes made through version 3.0 aim to improve patient care by providing the oncology community with guidance on treatment options for patients in advanced and preoperative settings.

“The most important changes include the consideration of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for patients with resectable disease and its impact on overall survival; tebentafusp-tebn (Kimmtrak, Immunocore), the first FDA approved treatment for metastatic uveal melanoma; the importance of treatment sequencing for patients with metastatic BRAF mutations as demonstrated in the DREAMseq trial results showing superiority of immunotherapy vs. targeted therapy in the front-line setting; the importance of tumor sequencing so all treatment options can be assessed; and ensuring the administration of immunotherapy is not be contingent on patient age, but rather performance status and comorbidities,” Pavlick told Healio.

Updates have been made every 5 years since the release of SITC’s original melanoma guidance, which Pavlick says will continue to be updated “depending on how quickly new developments happen” within the melanoma immunotherapy space.