LAUSR

Association of First-in-Class Immune Checkpoint Inhibition and Targeted Therapy With Survival in Patients With Stage IV Melanoma The management of advanced melanoma has witnessed dramatic changes in recent years with the rational development of novel systemic therapies. The efficacies of immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted BRAF/MEK pathway inhibitors have been demonstrated in well-designed randomized clinical trials.1-5 These drugs subsequently gained approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, first becoming available to patients with stage IV melanoma in the United States in 2011 with the approval of ipilimumab (March 2011) and vemurafenib (August 2011). The efficacies of these drugs have been demonstrated in the context of randomized clinical trials, but their association with patient outcomes on a population level is less well defined. We present here early findings of the initial national outcomes resulting from these therapies.