Immunotherapy in Advanced Cutaneous Melanoma: From the Optimal Treatment Duration to the Impact on Survival in Case of Early Discontinuation Due to Immune-Related Adverse Events

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have improved the prognosis of patients with cutaneous melanoma. Immunotherapy (IT) is generally well tolerated, but an increasing area of investigation concerns the optimal treatment duration of anti-programmed cell death-1 (anti-PD1) regimens to limit the immune-related adverse events in patients who obtained a clinical response. Another point of interest is the impact of the early discontinuation of ICIs on the maintenance of response in terms of survival in patients developing grade 3–4 adverse events that mostly occur in those receiving the combo-IT. Currently, we are still far from having final conclusions on these topics and, thus, the present review aims to describe the recent data about the optimal treatment duration and the maintenance of response in the case of early discontinuation. In this context, we include data on the real life of patients from our Medical Oncology Center who discontinued anti-PD1 after at least a stable disease or those interrupting the combo-IT due to adverse events.