[Interferon: therapy in patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma in adjuvant setting]

Malignant melanoma still remains a challenge as an increase of the malignant disease incidence is noted. Five years after removal of the primary lesion, the recurrence of malignant melanoma is observed in 55-80% of patients at high risk for the recurrence. Therefore, the 5-year survival rate is 25-70%. These results point to the need of searching for optimal adjuvant treatment. Standard cytostatics are of no use due to lacking effectiveness in adjuvant treatment. Early results of clinical trials (15-20% of objective responses) with interferon in the treatment of advanced cutaneous malignant melanoma have created the foundations for the determination of the role of this cytokine in adjuvant treatment. Adjuvant therapy with low doses of interferon is ineffective with respect to neither overall survival time nor disease-free time while high-dose interferon immunotherapy increases the overall survival time (as confirmed by two randomised trials out of three trials conducted) and disease-free survival. For this reason, high-dose interferon immunotherapy should be administered to cutaneous malignant melanoma patients at high risk for disease recurrence.