Retrospective study characterizes treatment choices for advanced melanoma patients in the USA, suggesting direction for future therapy.
Key Points
This study aims to characterize the treatment patterns for patients in the USA with advanced cutaneous melanoma transitioning from first-line to second-line therapy.
Conducted a retrospective, observational study using administrative claims data from a large US managed care database.
Included adult patients with metastatic melanoma who initiated first-line systemic therapy between January 2023 and December 2025 and transitioned to second-line therapy.
Utilized claims-based algorithms to identify treatment regimens and illustrated transitions with Sankey diagrams.
Of 1772 patients, 38.4% were classified as presumed BRAF V600-mutated, and 61.6% as BRAF wild-type.
First-line therapies were predominantly immune checkpoint inhibitor-based (78.5%); BRAF + MEK inhibitors were used in 14.4%.
In second-line therapy, 27.5% of patients received BRAF + MEK inhibitors, with significant associations between first-line therapy and second-line treatment selection (p < 0.001).