Is immune therapy effective in older patients with advanced skin melanoma?

This study looked at the effectiveness of immune therapy in patients aged over 65 with advanced melanoma. They found that immune therapy led to longer survival times than other treatments such as chemotherapy.

Immune therapy has improved the outlook for patients with advanced skin melanoma. These medications stimulate the patient’s immune system to fight the cancer cells. However, most clinical trials include young, fit patients. Therefore, it is not clear if these medications are as effective in older patients whose immune systems are not as strong. 

Medical records of 541 patients with advanced melanoma were reviewed for this study. Patients were divided into groups based on the first treatment they received after diagnosis. 36.5% received immune therapy either with CTLA-4 inhibitors such as ipilimumab (Yervoy) or PD-1 inhibitors such as nivolumab (Opdivo) or pembrolizumab (Keytruda). The remainder received targeted therapy (10%), chemotherapy (6.1%), or no therapy (more than 47%). 

The average survival time was the longest in the PD-1 inhibitor group (34 months), then the CTLA-4 inhibitor group (16.8 months). Other treatments had lower average survival times. Targeted therapy resulted in an average survival of 9.7 months and chemotherapy of 7.1 months, while no therapy led to an average survival of 3.55 months. 

Immune therapy was equally effective in the 65-74 years age group and the over 75 years age group.

This study showed that immune therapy is effective in older patients with advanced melanoma.

This study is based on medical records, more studies are needed to confirm these findings.