Chemotherapy for stage 4 melanoma: a three-year experience with cisplatin, DTIC, BCNU, and tamoxifen

The management of metastatic melanoma has been frustrating from a clinician's point of view because of the relative unresponsiveness of the tumor to chemotherapy and the infrequency of clinically useful objective responses. Although no single agent can be recommended at this time, old standard drugs used in new combinations, immunomodulators, and systematic approaches to dose intensification have created more interest in the chemotherapy of melanoma. Forty-seven consecutive patients with Stage 4 melanoma with measurable disease were treated with combination chemotherapy, consisting of DTIC, BCNU, cisplatin, and tamoxifen. The cycle was repeated every 4 weeks and a total of 6 cycles were delivered. Patients were then restaged to assess the response. Nine patients who were registered during the same time period with Stage 4 disease and elected not to be treated served as the control population. Seventeen patients (46%) achieved a clinical response with six patients (12.7%) undergoing a complete response. The overall survival of all Stage 4 patients in the series was 18% at 3 years. There were significant differences noted in those patients who were treated and the no treatment controls (p = 0.004) and for those patients that received an objective response vs those that progressed on the protocol (p < 0.0001). It is recommended that all patients with Stage 4 melanoma be treated on protocol and results of other trials of systemic therapy for metastatic melanoma be compared to this cisplatin-based regimen instead of a no-treatment arm.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)