Title:Melanoma
Volume: 12
Issue: 3
Author(s): Vamsee Torri, Wojciech Dolata, Khanh Vu, Arbind Dubey, Bryan Brunet and Patricia Tai
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Sentinel node biopsy, systemic therapy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, node dissection,
targeted therapy, treatment, sites.
Abstract: Melanoma is a common aggressive skin cancer. Its numerous genetic mutations
have become rich targets for systemic therapy with chemotherapy or immunotherapy. Surgery
is the best initial treatment. Completion nodal dissection for sentinel node positive patients
decrease regional occurrence but no survival benefit was found in a few studies. Radiotherapy
(RT) is used as primary, adjuvant and palliative treatment. Specific scenarios
with unknown primary, head and neck melanomas, and distant metastases are discussed.
Systemic therapy includes molecular therapy based on diver mutation or immunotherapy.
Treatment guidelines should be utilized by the multidisciplinary team to aid treatment decision
making. Future improvement in outcome can only be achieved by enrollment of patient
into clinical trials and therefore should be encouraged. Future research will be along
the line of immunotherapy, target therapy, hyperthermia, nanoparticles, neutron, and radioisotope
treatments.
