Emerging Strategies in Systemic Therapy for the Treatment of Melanoma

Recent years have seen clinically important advances in the treatment of melanoma with the advent of various systemic immunotherapies and targeted therapies. Since 2011, several of these new agents have been approved and have resulted in improvements in the survival of patients with advanced melanoma. Even more impressive, outcomes are now being observed through the use of various combination strategies, including different immunotherapies being combined with one another as well as with other modalities. However, despite the major advances that have clearly been achieved in improving outcomes for patients with melanoma, responses to treatment are heterogeneous and may not always be durable. As our understanding of these novel treatment approaches evolves, attempts to further improve outcomes for more patients are ongoing. This includes investigation of a wide range of novel treatment combinations together with the identification of new targets for therapy. Another approach, adoptive cell transfer (the infusion of large numbers of activated autologous lymphocytes), also offers potential, primarily as a treatment option for patients with disease progression after immunotherapy. Recent advances in these fields are reviewed and discussed here. NOVEL COMBINATION THERAPIES Section: ChooseTop of pageAbstractNOVEL COMBINATION THERAPI... <