Ocular Melanoma: Prognosticators of first line treatment of metastatic uveal melanoma (MUM)

ASCO 2016: Poster Session 175

A retrospective study, gathering data from previous UM cases including trial data, aiming to establish the best predictors of survival in the metastatic setting. Such tests exist for the primary melanoma but none as yet for metastatic patients.

Unsurprisingly liver burden was key in predicting overall response and affects the viability of both surgical interventions and the efficacy of systemic approaches. Identifying the need for additional therapeutic approaches was concluded, although this might be mitigated by the fact that some of the patients from 2004-2012 would have likely missed out on an immunotherapy or new liver directed treatments.

Interstingly, the survival graph is plotted from diagnosis of metastic disease as opposed to post initial treatment. This is different from the usual curves we see for performance of immuntherapy drugs, say, which measure from time of first infusion.