Journal Of Clinical Oncology (jco) Podcast

This JCO Podcast provides observations and commentary on the JCO article Durable Tumor Regression and Overall Survival in Patients with Advanced Merkel Cell Carcinoma Receiving Pembrolizumab as First-Line Therapy by Paul Nghiem, MD, PhD et al. My name is Reed Drews, and I am a member of the Cutaneous Oncology Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. My oncologic specialty is non-melanoma skin cancers.   Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare, aggressive neuroendocrine skin malignancy with high propensity for local recurrence and regional lymph node and systemic metastases. Its incidence rises exponentially with aging and is 10-fold higher in chronically immunosuppressed patients. When Merkel cell carcinoma is advanced and/or unresectable, historical 5-year overall survival rates are low, from 14 to 27%. Cytotoxic chemotherapies, like platinum plus etoposide used in other high-grade neuroendocrine malignancies, have not yielded durable response rates.   The cutaneous cell (or cells) of origin in