Adjuvant therapy for melanoma

Patients with deep primaries (> or = 4 mm) or regional lymph node involvement often require adjuvant therapy in addition to surgery to successfully treat melanoma. Various adjuvant strategies are reviewed. Randomized trials of IFN-alpha adjuvant therapy have demonstrated statistically significant improvements in disease-free and overall survival rates, leading to approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration of the use of 1 year of intensive IFN-alpha2b following surgical resection of high-risk disease. A study comparing high-dose IFN with the ganglioside vaccine GMK was terminated early when the Data Safety Monitoring Committee concluded that the high-dose IFN treatment arm was associated with highly significantly improved relapse-free and overall survival. Studies of IFN-alpha in stage I and II melanoma are reviewed. Dose and schedule issues in the use of IFN-alpha are addressed. In addition to adjuvant therapy with IFN-alpha, various other treatment strategies appear promising. Adjuvant vaccine therapy may be useful for treatment of cutaneous melanoma. Polyvalent melanoma vaccines are discussed as a potential adjuvant therapy. Finally, nonrandomized preliminary studies suggest that postoperative radiation to the neck or axilla after radical lymph node dissection may decrease regional recurrence rates in node-positive patients, supporting the selective use of radiation therapy for melanoma.