Correlation between previous treatment with BRAF inhibitors and clinical response to pembrolizumab in patients with advanced melanoma

Figures & data

Table 1. Patient characteristics before starting and after targeted therapy (BRAF mutant), and before starting and after ipilimumab (BRAF wild-type).

	BRAF mutated (n=16)		BRAF wild-type (n=26)
Characteristic	Before target therapy	After target therapy	Before ipilimumab	After ipilimumab
LDH levels
Elevated (> 2)	3	1	2	3
Elevated ( >1 and ≤ 2)	3	9	11	11
Normal	10	6	13	12
Visceral sites
≥ 3 sites	12	12	11	8
< 3 sites	4	4	15	18
Performance status
0	11	3	14	11
1	5	13	12	15
Targeted therapy
Vemurafenib	14	NA	NA	NA
MEK inhibitor	2
Previous line of treatment
0	15	NA	4	NA
1	1		22
Previous treatments
Dacarbazine	0	NA	21	NA
Temozolomide	0		1
MEK inhibitor	0		0
Ipilimumab	1		0

Table 2. Patient characteristics before starting pembrolizumab.

Characteristic	BRAF mutated (n=16)	BRAF wild-type (n=26)	Total (N=42)
Sex (male/female)	8/8	15/11	25 (53%)/22 (47%)
Age, years (median, range)	30 (28–60)	55 (42–70)	49 (28–70)
Histology
Cutaneous	16	24	40 (95.2%)
Mucosal		2	2 (4.8%)
Disease stage IV M1C	16	26	42
With brain metastases	6 (37.5%)	3 (11.5%)	9 (21.4%)
Without brain metastases	10 (62.5%)	23 (88.5%)	33 (78.6%)
LDH levels
Elevated (> 2)	0	3	3
Elevated ( >1 and ≤ 2)	11	11	22
Normal	5	12	17
Visceral sites
≥ 3 sites	13	14	27 (64.3%)
< 3 sites	3	12	15 (35.7%)
Performance status
0	4	10	14 (33%)
1	12	16	28 (67%)
Previous line of treatment
1	0	4 (15.4%)	4 (9.5%)
2	16 (100%)	22 (84.6%)	38 (90.5%)

Figure 1. Patient treatment and duration of response: (A) BRAF wild-type group, (B) BRAF- mutant group.

Figure 2. Median PFS in patients treated with pembrolizumab according to BRAF mutational status