Refining adjuvant therapy options in patients with stage II melanoma

AIMS: Patients with stage II melanoma have multiple adjuvant therapy options in national guidelines. We evaluated management strategies to better define treatment in this heterogeneous population. METHODS: Using the National Cancer Database (2010-2021), we identified patients with pathological stage IIA-IIC cutaneous melanoma who underwent surgical resection. Adjuvant treatment categories included no additional therapy (i.e. surgery only), immunotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy plus radiation. Multivariable Cox proportional models evaluated overall survival by T-stage groups: T2b/T3a, T3b/T4a, and T4b and margin status (negative vs. positive). With negative margins, adjuvant therapy did not improve survival in T2b/T3a patients. Adjuvant immunotherapy in the negative margin cohort improved survival in T3b/T4a (HR 0.52, 95% CI: 0.44-0.62) and T4b (HR 0.54, 95% CI: 0.47-0.62) melanoma. Among patients with positive margins, no benefit was observed with adjuvant therapy of any modality among all T-stage group cohorts. CONCLUSION: The impact of adjuvant treatment on overall survival in stage II melanoma depended on T-stage and margin status. Patients with low-risk disease had no survival benefit, while those with high-risk melanoma, T3b/T4a and T4b, benefited from adjuvant immunotherapy after R0 resection.