Immunotherapy after surgery keeps melanoma at bay in high-risk patients

This study tested whether giving the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab after surgery could delay melanoma from returning in people with high-risk stage III melanoma. About 1,000 participants were randomly assigned to receive either pembrolizumab or a placebo for up to a year. The results showed that pembrolizumab improved the time without cancer recurrence compared to placebo, especially in those with PD-L1-positive tumors. Patients whose cancer returned could then receive pembrolizumab in a second part of the study.