Melanoma Updates From ASCO 2023: PD-1 and LAG-3

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

This is Dr Jeffrey Weber. I'm a medical oncologist at the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University Langone Health in New York City. Today, I'd like to report to you about three abstracts presented at this year's American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, which I think have significance and importance as they relate to melanoma practice and care.

The first one was a phase 1/2 trial of the new lymphocyte-activation gene 3 (LAG-3) antibody, fianlimab, with the established programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibody cemiplimab. This was an interesting study with an initial dose escalation with a rapid accrual of patients and two expansion cohorts, where 40 patients were treated in one cohort who could have been PD-1 experienced and another 40 patients were treated who could not have seen prior PD-1 or PD-1–cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) therapies. Finally, there was a third cohort of another 18 patients, for a total of 98, where patients could have seen PD-1 but had significant negative prognostic factors.

The amazing thing was that in this PD-1–LAG-3 trial, the response rates were fantastic. The response rates in the initial and in the second cohort, each of about 40 patients, were very high: 63% in both of those cohorts as evaluated by the investigators.