News & Publications
The latest news and publications about Merkel cell carcinoma and merkelcell.org.
Merkel cell carcinoma, fortunately, rarely spreads to the brain, unlike several other types of cancer including melanoma. This study from Dr. David Miller’s team at Massachusetts General Hospital shows that unless there is some specific reason to suspect it (bad headaches, alteration in ability to...
Read more →Patients who experience a recurrence of their Merkel cell carcinoma are often treated aggressively. We report a case of a man with an unusually long course of MCC over 15 years who had his MCC recur around his face or neck 7 times before eventually developing distant spread. Because he had 4 major ...
Read more →There is an urgent need to find ways to help patients who do not have a persistent response to immune ‘checkpoint’ therapy for MCC. This review details surprising new findings from multiple labs that suggest such patients might benefit from blocking the ‘sensor’ a cancer cell uses to verify ...
Read more →This study provides evidence of frequent and durable responses to avelumab (anti-PD-L1) when patients receive such immune stimulation before starting traditional chemotherapy.
Read more →Managing MCC that recurs in patients who are immune suppressed due to an organ transplant (kidney, heart, etc) is a special challenge, as the immune therapies that block the PD1 pathway will cause rejection of the transplanted organ. This case shows the capacity of local immune therapy (with an inje...
Read more →This is a comprehensive analysis of 52 previously published studies across 1804 patients with Merkel cell carcinoma, addressing which approaches are most effective in preventing MCC recurrences. Because national databases do not capture recurrence data (only death) such studies must be done by local...
Read more →Although MCC fortunately does not often spread to the brain, this is an especially difficult site to treat. This manuscript summarizes results from four patients that closely mimic our own experience in Seattle. That is, there is a reasonable chance that patients with MCC that has spread to the brai...
Read more →In a study of 72 locally advanced MCC (disease involving regional lymph nodes) patients, the authors report that radiation therapy to the lymph nodes improves disease specific survival and reduces regional and distant recurrences.
Read more →This retrospective multi center analysis aimed to assess the outcomes of patients with metastatic of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) after discontinuation of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI treatment) such as Pembrolizumab and Avelumab. Data on treatment duration, tumor response, treatment cessation, ...
Read more →In a real-world study of 94 patients with locally advanced and metastatic MCC, 54 patients were treated with first line immunotherapy and 40 patients were treated with chemotherapy. The authors report that patients have improved outcomes with immunotherapy compared to chemotherapy. This may provide ...
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