Impact of prior treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors on dacarbazine efficacy in metastatic melanoma.

Background: Despite its low efficacy, chemotherapy with dacarbazine remains an option in metastatic melanoma patients after failure of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) ± targeted therapy. Some observations suggested an increased efficacy of chemotherapy in melanoma or lung cancer patients previously treated with ICI; we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of dacarbazine in a controlled-group study of patients pre-treated or not with ICI.

Methods: We retrospectively collected data from all consecutive patients treated with dacarbazine for advanced cutaneous melanoma without brain metastasis, in our skin cancer centre between June 2006 and September 2019.