KEYNOTE 006

Prof Jeroen Mebis, medical oncologist at Jessa Hospital in Hasselt, Belgium, shares his key insights on the KEYNOTE-006 study.

The 10-year follow-up of the KEYNOTE-006 trial, presented by Prof Caroline Robert, reaffirmed the long-term efficacy of pembrolizumab over ipilimumab in the first-line treatment of metastatic melanoma. This Phase 3 trial originally compared pembrolizumab with ipilimumab and, after a decade of follow-up, confirmed that pembrolizumab offers a sustained improvement in OS and melanoma-specific survival compared to ipilimumab.

No new safety concerns emerged during the 10 years of monitoring, supporting pembrolizumab’s favourable safety profile over the long term.  Additionally, subgroup analysis indicated that patients with BRAF mutations also benefit significantly from first-line immunotherapy with pembrolizumab, a clinically relevant finding. This reinforces the role of pembrolizumab as a primary treatment option for a broad range of melanoma patients, including those with specific genetic profiles like BRAF mutations.