For patients with previously untreated metastatic uveal melanoma, treatment with tebentafusp results in longer overall survival than control therapy, according to a study published in the Sept. 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Paul Nathan, M.D., Ph.D., from the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in Northwood, England, and colleagues randomly assigned previously untreated HLA*02:01-positive patients with metastatic uveal melanoma in a 2:1 ratio to receive tebentafusp or the investigator's choice of therapy with single-agent pembrolizumab, ipilimumab, or dacarbazine (252 and 126 patients, respectively).

The researchers found that in the intention-to treat analysis, overall survival was 73 and 59 percent at one year in the tebentafusp and control groups, respectively (hazard ratio for death, 0.51). In the tebentafusp group versus the control group, progression-free survival was also significantly higher (31 versus 19 percent at six months; hazard ratio for disease progression or death, 0.73). In the tebentafusp group, the most common treatment-related adverse events were cytokine-mediated events and skin-related events, including rash, pyrexia, and pruritis (83, 76, and 69 percent, respectively). There were no reports of treatment-related deaths.

"Patients who received tebentafusp and had disease progression as the best response had longer survival than patients who had disease progression as the best response in the control group," the authors write. "This finding implies a clinically meaningful effect on outcomes for patients."

The study was funded by Immunocore, the developer of tebentafusp.

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