Patient Outcomes
With a mean time from diagnosis to initiation of treatment of 31.8 days
(range: 0-70 days), 21/23 (91.3%) patients remained alive and
disease-free as of February 14, 2023, at a median of 3.39 years (range
0.11 – 11.8 years) of follow up (Figure 1). Two patients had
recurrence, both remain alive and currently disease-free with salvage
therapies. No patients died from melanoma. Due to the small size and
nature of this study, we cannot claim significant survival differences
between patient cohorts. Nevertheless, patients who received nivolumab
(n=6) at the time of initial treatment did not have recurrence or
progression of their melanoma. Of the 9 patients diagnosed at Stage III
with at least 1 positive SLN, 6 received nivolumab and did not have
recurrence/progression, 1 did not receive nivolumab and had recurrence,
and 2 did not have recurrence/progression although 1 of them received
interferon as part of the initial treatment (Table 2).