By Douglas Johnson, MD, MSCI, Assistant Professor of Medicine & Clinical Director, Melanoma, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center  |  May 31, 2017

Profiling Melanoma to Predict Immune Therapy Success

May is Melanoma awareness month, and our series on melanoma continues with a discussion with Dr. Douglas B. Johnson of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Dr. Johnson leads Vanderbilt’s melanoma clinical and research program, overseeing clinical trials, patient care and translational research. His research interests focus on developing new immune and targeted therapies for melanoma, and in using existing treatments in the most effective ways. Specifically, he is exploring ways to profile cancers to predict which patients will benefit from immune therapies.

Combination and Targeted Therapies Allow Long-Term Survival

Real World Health Care: You published a review of therapeutic advances and treatment options in metastatic melanoma. Can you summarize the review and discuss its implications for patients with the disease?

Dr. Douglas Johnson, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Douglas Johnson: Treatment options for advanced melanoma have been rapidly advancing. We now have multiple options for patients with this disease, when even 5-10 years ago very few existed. Immune therapies, which unleash the immune system against the cancer, result in long-lasting responses in a large fraction of patients. The number of patients who benefit from treatment increases when two immune therapy treatments are combined, although at the cost of increased side effects. Targeted therapies, which block the effects of particular genetic mutations, have also made a big difference, particularly for patients who have mutations in the gene BRAF, which represents about half of melanoma patients. These treatments have transformed a disease which was essentially uniformly fatal to one that is often associated with long-term survival.

RWHC: Are you currently working on any new studies or trials relating to melanoma?

DJ: We have a number of combination immunotherapy trials. These types of trials are attempting to use strategies that extend the benefits of immune therapy to more patients. We are also working on developing biomarkers for immune therapy responses. In particular, we are evaluating whether the number and types of mutations in melanoma, as well as the expression of particular immune proteins, can predict which patients will respond to immune therapy. We also are studying the side effects and toxicities of immune therapy, to understand why they occur, who is affected, and develop effective prevention and treatment strategies.

Melanoma Research and Treatment 

RWHC: What do you see as the most promising treatments on the horizon for melanoma?

DJ: A number of promising immune therapy combinations are being developed. It is very difficult to say which is the most promising, but likely some combination of anti-PD-1 therapy with other immune or targeted therapy agents.

RWHC: What are the biggest challenges facing melanoma researchers?

DJ: One of the biggest challenges is predicting who will respond to current immune and/or targeted therapies so we can assign the right treatment to the right patient. Researchers also are challenged to develop the most effective combination therapies and to prevent and manage toxicities. In some ways, the development of effective therapies has made it more difficult to enroll patients in clinical trials. This is a good problem to have, but it limits the speed of developing new effective therapies.

RWHC: What are the biggest challenges facing clinicians treating patients with melanoma?

DJ: From a clinical standpoint, the challenges are similar. Despite the current advances, there is still a large subset of patients who do not respond well to treatments. We need to understand who those patients are upfront, and develop more effective treatment strategies for them.

Toxicities are also a major consideration, particularly for patients with other medical problems or who have limited functional status. It is always a difficult balancing act deciding between single agent and combination immune therapy. On one side is the potential for a somewhat higher response rate, on the other side is the significant increase in side effects (which are typically manageable). Every clinician and patient has a different threshold regarding when to offer these therapies.

Improving the Lives of Melanoma Patients

RWHC: What initially interested you in studying and treating melanoma? What continues to inspire you?

DJ: I had a friend during my medical training who developed stage III melanoma and I was struck by the lack of treatment options at the time. When I joined Vanderbilt, my mentor Dr. Jeff Sosman was doing amazing research, and I become very excited about the prospect of doing groundbreaking research that would affect patient lives. That approach continues to drive and inspire me.