title: Novel Approaches to Treatment of Advanced Melanoma: A Review on Targeted Therapy and Immunotherapy.
abstract: The incidence of malignant melanoma is increasing. The majority of patients are diagnosed in early stages when the disease is highly curable. However, the more advanced or metastatic cases have always been a challenge for clinicians. The poor prognosis for patients with melanoma is now changing as numerous of promising approaches have appeared recently. The discovery of aberrations of pathways responsible for intracellular signal transduction allowed us to introduce agents specifically targeting the mutated cascades. Numerous clinical studies have been conducted to improve effectiveness of melanoma treatment. From 2011 until now, the U.S. FDA has approved seven novel agents, such as BRAF-inhibitors (vemurafenib 2011, dabrafenib 2013), MEK-inhibitors (trametinib 2013), anti-PD1 antibodies (nivolumab 2014, pembrolizumab 2014), anti-CTLA-4 antibody (ipilimumab 2011), or peginterferon-alfa-2b (2011) intended to be used in most advanced cases of melanoma. Nevertheless, clinicians continue working on new possible methods of treatment as resistance to the novel drugs is a commonly observed problem. This paper is based on latest data published until the end of January 2015.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Immunodermatology, Faculty of Medicine, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, 9 Sklodowskiej-Curie Street, 85-094 Bydgoszcz, Poland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Niezgoda
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology and Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, 9 Sklodowskiej-Curie Street, 85-094 Bydgoszcz, Poland.
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Niezgoda
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Immunodermatology, Faculty of Medicine, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, 9 Sklodowskiej-Curie Street, 85-094 Bydgoszcz, Poland.
authors.forename: Rafał
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Czajkowski
mesh_terms: D061067:Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy; D020935:MAP Kinase Signaling System / Q000187:drug effects; D008545:Melanoma / Q000628:therapy*; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors; D048493:Proto-Oncogene Proteins B-raf / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors
chemical_list: D061067:Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors; D048493:Proto-Oncogene Proteins B-raf