Overall survival for patients with melanoma that has spread to the brain is only four to six months. Immunotherapies, which harness the power of the immune system to attack cancer cells, have garnered excitement in recent years for their potential to revolutionize the treatment of metastatic melanomas, but results from early clinical studies indicate that the prognosis for most patients remains poor. Now, scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, have integrated multiple therapeutic approaches to more effectively target melanoma in the brain. In preclinical studies, the scientists successfully activated immune responses in sophisticated mouse models that mimic human settings. Findings are published in Science Translational Medicine.
