According to a press release from Edith Cowan University, treatment strategies that involve personalized mRNA vaccines may increase survival and decrease the risk of disease recurrence in patients with high-risk advanced melanoma. Findings from the phase II mRNA-4157-P201/KEYNOTE-942 trial were presented by Khattak et al at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting. Experts stressed that with the current treatment standard of immunotherapy demonstrating a 5-year cancer recurrence rate of 50% among patients who have stage III melanoma, mRNA vaccines represent a potential avenue to achieve improved survival rates in this patient population. Researchers explained that mRNA vaccines are designed to trigger an antitumor immune response by using neoantigens identified from patients’ individual tumor tissue. In the trial, the researchers assigned patients to receive either mRNA-4157 (a novel mRNA-based personalized vaccine) in combination with immunotherapy or immunotherapy alone. After 18 months of follow-up, patients who received the vaccine plus immunotherapy experienced a 78.6% rate of recurrence-free survival compared to 62.2% among those who received only immunotherapy; after 2 years of follow-up, recurrence-free survival events occurred in 22.4% of patients receiving the combination vs 40% of those receiving only immunotherapy. However, after 40 weeks of follow-up, the patients from both groups showed similar rates of survival. Researchers concluded that they plan to conduct further studies utilizing mRNA vaccines involving patients with earlier stages of melanoma.
June 19, 2023