Complete response rate was 37 percent, and post-hoc end point of objective response rate was 89 percent<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
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TUESDAY, Aug. 19, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Patients with advanced desmoplastic melanoma have high response to single-agent anti-programmed death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy, according to a study published online Aug. 14 in Nature Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n Kari L. Kendra, M.D., Ph.D., from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, examined the activity of pembrolizumab in patients with surgically unresectable desmoplastic melanoma in a single-arm clinical trial, which enrolled 27 patients who received pembrolizumab 200\u2009mg intravenously every three\u2009weeks for up to two\u2009years.<\/p>\n The researchers found that the complete response rate was 37 percent and the post-hoc end point of objective response rate was 89 percent. In terms of estimated secondary end points, three-year melanoma-specific progression-free survival was 84 percent and overall survival was 96 percent; one patient died of melanoma progression. Overall, 10 and nine patients (37 and 33 percent) experienced grade 3 to 4 adverse events and discontinued treatment due to adverse events, respectively.<\/p>\n “The promising results from this trial show that pembrolizumab can offer durable benefit for patients with a melanoma subtype that previously had no successful treatment options, and now we know that desmoplastic melanoma is among the cancers with the highest response rates to the anti-PD-1 class of cancer immunotherapies,” senior author Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n Abstract\/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)<\/a><\/p>\n