Authors of this recent study reviewed published economic evaluations of primary prevention initiatives in the past decade, to support investment decisions for skin cancer prevention. The study concludes that from both population health and economic perspectives, allocating limited health care resources to primary prevention of skin cancer is highly favourable.
According to this recent study, valine aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (VARS) is a key player in the codon-biased translation reprogramming induced by resistance to targeted (MAPK) therapy in melanoma. The study concludes that VARS may represent an attractive therapeutic target for the treatment of therapy-resistant melanoma.
According to this recent study, the incidence of invasive melanoma (IM) in New Zealand has plateaued in the last decade and was associated with an increase in melanoma in situ incidence over the same period. The study concludes that while this trend is encouraging, further research is required to investigate whether there is an actual decline in IM incidence.
This systematic review aimed to analyse clinical outcomes for patients with invasive melanomas treated with Mohs rather than wide local excision (WLE). The study concludes that on the basis of currently available data, it is not possible to reliably assess whether outcomes differ if invasive melanomas with comparable features are treated with Mohs or WLE. Randomised trial evidence will be required for reliable conclusions to be reached.
This review aims to summarise randomised controlled trials done to test photodynamic therapy effectiveness in BCC. The study concludes that photodynamic therapy is a safe and efficacious treatment option for superficial BCC and to a lesser extent nodular BCC.
According to this recent study, rosacea is associated with some comorbidities and ethnicity may be a risk factor in melanoma development. The retrospective nature of this study and the sole use of ICD-10 code based filtering calls for future validation of the findings. Additionally, confounding factors such as skin type and previous UV exposure should be included in future studies.
This review looks beyond immune checkpoint inhibitor treatments and summarises several emerging treatment strategies for melanoma, including neoantigen vaccines, conventional antibody drug-conjugates, and bispecific T-cell engager therapies.
This recent study aimed to determine how neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NAST) with targeted therapies (TTs) and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) influences surgical outcomes after lymph node dissection in terms of complications, morbidity, and textbook outcomes. The study concludes that the surgical outcomes were comparable between the patients who received NAST and those who had upfront surgery, indicating that surgery can be safely performed after NAST with TT or ICIs for stage III melanoma.
According to this recent study, neoadjuvant dabrafenib plus trametinib has high pathological response rates in clinical stage III melanoma, but low rates of recurrence-free survival, similar to those achieved with adjuvant targeted therapy alone. Patients with a pathological complete response to dabrafenib plus trametinib still had a high risk of recurrence, unlike that seen with immunotherapy where recurrences are rare.
A recent trial evaluated talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) plus pembrolizumab in advanced melanoma that progressed on prior programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) inhibitors. The study concludes that T-VEC-pembrolizumab demonstrated antitumor activity and tolerability in PD-1-refractory melanoma, specifically in patients with disease recurrence on or after adjuvant anti–PD-1.