How do you approach patients with malignant melanoma who are disease free on immunotherapy for over 3 years?

The prognosis of metastatic melanoma patients treated with immunotherapy has improved considerably. Based on the 6.5-yr update to the CHECKMATE-067 study (presented at ASCO 2021 meeting), the OS for patients treated with ipi/nivo is 49%, 42% for nivo alone, and 23% for ipi alone. If the patient has remained disease-free post immunotherapy. NCCN guideline for melanoma does recommend a gradual lengthening of the follow-up interval (q3 months for the first year, q4 months for the second year, and then q6 months for a total of 5 years of active surveillance post-treatment). It is still important to keep in mind that there are still a minority of patients that can still relapse post immunotherapy. In the CHECKMATE-067 study, there were 18% of pa...