Surgery is the first line of treatment for Stage III melanoma. Often adjuvant therapy is administered post-surgery, which can include weeks of radiation, chemotherapy, targeted drug therapy, or immunotherapy. Previous preclinical studies suggest that treatment with neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade may lead to increased survival compared to adjuvant treatment1. This webinar will cover recent data from parallel but independent clinical trials explored the efficacy of anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CLTA4 combination immunotherapy plus surgery in patients with early stage melanoma2,3. 

In each study, safety of the treatment regimen and evidence of immune activity in response to treatment was evaluated. In addition to standard H&E and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining before and after treatment each study also employed NanoString’s GeoMx™ Digital Spatial Profiler to perform high-plex proteomic analysis with spatial resolution. GeoMx DSP enabled the discovery of markers of antigen presentation (β2M) and T cells (CD3) present on pretreatment tumor biopsies that correlated with clinical efficacy in each study. Additionally, the responses to therapy in each study were strong enough to merit larger trials and continued investigation of the most effective immunotherapy strategy.

FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Gain an appreciation for how multiplexed spatial profiling via GeoMx can aid in tumor characterization
2. Understand how GeoMx profiling was used in the 2 studies presented to identify biomarkers of response to immunotherapy and complement other molecular profiling strategies