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What is the role of adjuvant radiation therapy for stage III melanoma in the era of adjuvant Opdivo?

Burnmeister data from 2012 showed a local control benefit for radiation therapy in selected patients, but that was without immunotherapy. What specific clinico-pathologic factors (e.g., number of nodes, desmoplastic histology, primary site) guide your decision to recommending the addition of RT to standard-of-care immunotherapy, and how would you sequence therapy?
3 Answers
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Radiation Oncology · Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Answered on

I think the role of adjuvant radiotherapy in stage III cutaneous melanoma is difficult to define at this time (June 2019).

To be clear, the TROG trial mentioned above showed that adjuvant lymph node basin radiotherapy after therapeutic lymphadenectomy can decrease the chances of lymph node basin dis...

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Radiation Oncology · West Virginia University
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In this era of immunotherapy for clinical stage 3 melanoma, the role of postoperative nodal basin RT, once considered nearly standard, appears to be waning. A relatively recent single institutional retrospective (lots of problems I realize) Canadian series (Kibel et al., PMID 38136412) reviewed thei...

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Radiation Oncology · University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
Answered on

Under most circumstances, I recommend the use of postoperative radiation therapy for all but the smallest widely excised lesions. In my experience, and borne out by the literature, the use of postoperative radiation therapy with most malignancies, melanoma included, shows definite survival benefits....

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