WCCS/EADO 2016 | What is the future of melanoma immunotherapy

Brigitte Dréno, MD, PhD from the University Hospital of Nantes, Nantes, France discusses vaccination and T-cell adoptive therapies for the treatment of melanoma at the 2016 World Congress on Cancers of the Skin (WCCS) and the Congress of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology (EADO) in Vienna, Austria. Dr Dréno begins by introducing the subject of adoptive T-cell therapy and the new approaches focusing on specific antigens and inducing more reactive T-cells, by sorting and using clones, which are being researched currently. Dr Dréno believes that that in the future, vaccination and adoptive T-cell therapy will be used in combination, providing the example of T-cell therapy trials combined with anti PD-1 or oncolytic viruses. Dr Dréno suggests that for patients in the metastatic stages of their disease, future optimal therapies could involve a combination of targeted therapy with checkpoint inhibitors.