Adjuvant therapy in melanoma.
Melanoma is an immunologic tumour as indicated by clinical regression, long dormancy and the presence of class 1 dependent cytotoxic responses against well defined tumour peptides. The poor prognosis and relative chemoresistance of patients with regional nodal or metastatic disease highlights the urgent need for an effective adjuvant therapy. A wide variety of different agents have been assessed including high dose interferon which has been shown to improve overall survival, although results of a subsequent study have not confirmed these findings. Currently, a variety of different biotherapies and biochemotherapy regimes are being assessed in phase II and III studies and sentinel lymph node biopsy now provides an accurate method for staging so that all patients can be stratified into well-designed randomised controlled trials.
Whittaker
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Skin Tumour Unit, St John's Institute of Dermatology, St Thomas' Hospital, London, UK.
D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic / Q000627:therapeutic use; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008545:Melanoma / Q000556:secondary / Q000628:therapy*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis
D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D016898:Interferon-alpha