🎗️ Melanoma — 2026-W35

What this page is. Every paper the week's monitor reviewed — including the ones that did not go into the digest. Material marked “Not selected” was reviewed and deliberately left out. It has not been fact-checked to digest standard and is not endorsed. For the curated read, see the digest itself.

Single-arm phase 2 trial (Clin Cancer Res) of first-line nivolumab plus axitinib in previously untreated advanced mucosal melanoma, a rare and immunotherapy-resistant subtype, with an exploratory cohort testing treatment intensification at progression. Shows meaningful response activity in this hard-to-treat population, though notable toxicity including treatment-related deaths tempers enthusiasm pending larger studies.

Correlative immune-cytokine biomarker analysis from a phase 1 trial of oncolytic virus TILT-123 plus IL-2-free TIL therapy in checkpoint-inhibitor-resistant metastatic melanoma, published in J Immunother Cancer. Identifies an immune signature associated with survival, offering hypothesis-generating insight but not yet an actionable predictive marker for treatment selection.

Preclinical study in J Immunother Cancer developing a novel immunocompetent mouse model of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma to test immune checkpoint combinations, identifying VISTA and CTLA-4 as potential new targets alongside PD-1. Findings are validated in human tissue arrays but lack clinical outcome data, representing early-stage rationale for future immunotherapy combination trials in advanced cSCC.