Melanoma (Melanoma, Malignant)

A malignant neoplasm derived from cells that are capable of forming melanin, which may occur in the skin of any part of the body, in the eye, or, rarely, in the mucous membranes of the genitalia, anus, oral cavity, or other sites. It occurs mostly in adults and may originate de novo or from a pigmented nevus or malignant lentigo. Melanomas frequently metastasize widely, and the regional lymph nodes, liver, lungs, and brain are likely to be involved. The incidence of malignant skin melanomas is rising rapidly in all parts of the world. (Stedman, 25th ed; from Rook et al., Textbook of Dermatology, 4th ed, p2445)

Also Known As:

Networked: 39270 relevant articles (2093 outcomes, 6727 trials/studies)

Relationship Network

Disease Context: Research Results

Related Diseases

1.	Neoplasms (Cancer)
2.	Neoplasm Metastasis (Metastasis)
3.	Melanoma (Melanoma, Malignant)
4.	Skin Neoplasms (Skin Cancer)
5.	Carcinoma (Carcinomatosis)

Experts

1.	Schadendorf, Dirk: 174 articles (12/2015 - 01/2002)
2.	Rosenberg, Steven A: 147 articles (01/2016 - 01/2002)
3.	Kirkwood, John M: 145 articles (12/2015 - 01/2002)
4.	Thompson, John F: 128 articles (12/2015 - 03/2002)
5.	Ribas, Antoni: 112 articles (01/2016 - 11/2002)
6.	Dummer, Reinhard: 106 articles (12/2015 - 03/2002)
7.	Wolchok, Jedd D: 106 articles (10/2015 - 01/2002)
8.	Scolyer, Richard A: 102 articles (12/2015 - 08/2002)
9.	Fisher, Paul B: 96 articles (11/2015 - 01/2002)
10.	Herlyn, Meenhard: 95 articles (01/2016 - 01/2002)

Drugs and Biologics

Drugs and Important Biological Agents (IBA) related to Melanoma:

1.	ipilimumabIBA 05/01/2015 - "The inhibitory anti-CTLA-4 antibody, ipilimumab, dramatically improved survival in a subgroup of metastatic melanoma patients. " 01/01/2012 - "The demonstration of improved survival with the anti-CTLA4 antibody ipilimumab and the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib in patients with metastatic melanoma is arguably the most significant advance in the treatment for these patients in the last 30 years. " 01/01/2014 - "Ipilimumab has been shown to improve overall survival in patients with metastatic melanoma; however, complete responses (CRs) are uncommon. " 12/01/2012 - "Outstanding issues include the role of ipilimumab in the adjuvant treatment of patients who are at high risk for relapse, and the optimal treatment sequence for patients with BRAFV600 mutant melanoma, as small-molecule BRAF inhibitors have also been shown to improve the survival for this subgroup of patients." 02/01/2011 - "In patients with metastatic melanoma, ipilimumab increases survival time and induces complete remission in some patients. "
2.	Dacarbazine (DIC)FDA LinkGeneric 11/01/2015 - "For BRAF wild-type melanoma, the most frequently used first-line treatment was dacarbazine. " 11/01/2007 - "Although the therapeutic efficacy is very limited, dacarbazine cannot be rejected as standard therapy for disseminated melanoma, because no other therapeutic regimen exhibits a survival benefit over DTIC in an evidence-based analysis. " 10/01/2015 - "Vemurafenib significantly improved overall survival compared with dacarbazine in patients with metastatic or unresectable BRAF V600E-positive melanoma in the BRIM-3 trial. " 01/01/2015 - "Nivolumab significantly improved survival versus dacarbazine in previously untreated patients with metastatic melanoma in a Phase III trial. " 07/01/2013 - "Our trial suggests that Endostar plus dacarbazine is well tolerated in patients with metastatic melanoma harboring no genetic mutations popular for targeted therapy and yields a significant improvement in PFS and OS."
3.	Interleukin-2 (IL2)IBA 04/01/2006 - "A variety of immunotherapeutic approaches have shown activity in patients with metastatic melanoma with the best results being observed with interleukin 2 (IL-2). " 08/01/2003 - "Adjuvant treatment of intermediate- and high-risk melanoma patients with low-dose IFNalpha2b and IL-2 is safe and well tolerated by most patients, but it does not improve disease-free or overall survival." 02/01/2002 - "The efficacy of sequential chemoimmunotherapy involving interleukin-2 (IL2) in metastatic melanoma is limited, in part, by the severe toxicity associated with most therapeutic regimens. " 12/01/2015 - "Erratum to: Pathologic Complete Response to Intralesional Interleukin-2 Therapy Associated with Improved Survival in Melanoma Patients with In-Transit Disease." 01/01/2015 - "Pathologic complete response to intralesional interleukin-2 therapy associated with improved survival in melanoma patients with in-transit disease."
4.	AntigensIBA 05/01/1988 - "The results showed that 5-azadCyd was effective in inducing antigen expression in both systems whereas HU was effective (and equally so) only in the human melanoma cell line system. " 05/01/1987 - "The chimeric antibody, but not the mouse L6 antibody, is effective against a melanoma line expressing small amounts of the L6 antigen. " 08/01/1985 - "However, a melanoma cell line that expresses minimal levels of GD3 on 13% of the cells shows insignificant lysis by MB3.6 by either of these two mechanisms, suggesting that a threshold level of antigen expression may be required for effective in vitro cytolysis. " 03/01/1979 - "The radioimmunometric binding assay when modified and used as a binding inhibition assay was effective in the assessment of the serologic activity of soluble melanoma-associated antigens and thus may be used to monitor the progress of antigen purification." 05/01/2005 - "Although MVA-hTyr provides a safe and effective antigen-delivery system, it does not elicit a measurable immune response to its transgene product in patients with stage II melanoma after repeated combined intradermal and subcutaneous vaccination. "
5.	Cisplatin (Platino)FDA LinkGeneric 01/01/1990 - "However, in melanoma, administration of 200 mg/m2 per course did not appear to be associated with a markedly improved response rate, compared with cisplatin alone at "standard" doses." 09/01/2011 - "The combination treatment of cAT-MSC-IFN-β with cisplatin was more effective in inhibiting the growth of melanoma and resulted in significantly extended survival time than both an unengineered cAT-MSC-cisplatin combination group and a cisplatin-alone group. " 09/15/1991 - "Lack of efficacy of high-dose, cisplatin-based therapy for metastatic melanoma." 01/01/1983 - "On account of the considerable differences among these data the clinical study of Stage II had been started which should contribute to the elucidation of efficacy of cis-platinum in malignant melanoma treatment. " 01/01/2013 - "The present study was designed to determine the possibility that the combination of stem cell-based gene therapy with low-dose cisplatin would improve therapeutic efficacy against canine melanoma. "
6.	VaccinesIBA 10/15/2005 - "Of all the vaccines, the dual-modified vaccine generated the best therapeutic efficacy on melanoma-bearing mice, the strongest protection against melanoma challenge. " 03/01/2008 - "Clinical responses to melanoma vaccines are still poor and currently there is no melanoma vaccine with a proven efficacy. " 02/01/2004 - "When will melanoma vaccines be proven effective?" 06/01/2014 - "With further study and focus on mechanisms of immune regulation, there remains promise for the role of vaccines in combination with other immune-stimulatory agents in high-risk melanoma." 05/01/2005 - "Altered intracellular sorting signals do not significantly influence the efficacy of genetic melanoma vaccines incorporating helper determinants in our model system. "
7.	1-phenyl-3,3-dimethyltriazene (PDT)IBA 06/01/2012 - "Overall this study shows that pigment plays an important role in the efficacy of adjunctive PDT treatment and its removal enhances cell death susceptibility in melanomas." 01/01/2014 - "On that ground, this review focuses on the potential use of developing nanotechnologies able to bring significant benefits for anticancer PDT, aiming to reach higher efficacy and safety for patients with malignant melanoma. " 10/01/2015 - "Several reports showed encouraging results of the efficacy of PDT in melanoma on experimental models and in clinical trials. " 10/01/2007 - "Our case demonstrates that the vascular abnormalities following irradiation of iris melanoma may respond favorably to PDT in selected cases. " 05/01/2012 - "The present study describes the clinical and histopathologic features of five choroidal melanomas after PDT. "
8.	AntibodiesIBA 10/01/2010 - "As the CD70-CD27 costimulatory axis plays an important role in the activation, survival, and differentiation of lymphocytes, we have examined the efficacy of agonistic anti-CD27 antibodies as monotherapies for established melanoma in a murine model. " 03/21/2012 - "Conjugation of antibodies to the QD significantly improved the melanoma specificity, while unconjugated antibody alone suffered from non-specific binding to melanocytes. " 08/01/1996 - "Immunologically, we found that the titers of antimelanoma antibodies in patients with metastatic disease originating in the area of the head and neck were higher than the titer in disease-free H & N melanoma patients (p = 0.05). " 01/15/1995 - "This finding suggests that vaccine treatment may be effective in slowing the progression of melanoma in some patients and that the protective effect is mediated partly by vaccine-induced antimelanoma antibodies." 04/01/2012 - "Antibodies targeting ligand-receptor interactions that control activation and function of immune cell subsets such as dendritic cells (DCs) and in particular T cells have shown substantial promise for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma. "
9.	DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)IBA 07/01/1994 - "As the clinical and histological differential diagnosis between Spitz naevus and cutaneous melanoma may be very difficult, we have investigated whether DNA in situ hybridization maybe helpful in resolving this problem. " 04/01/2001 - "Immunization with DNA and peptide-pulsed spleen cells had a synergistic effect and provided significant protection against a challenge with poorly immunogenic B16-F0 malignant melanoma cells in the syngeneic C57BL/6 mouse model. " 01/01/2011 - "Determine if a novel xenogeneic DNA vaccine is safe and potentially effective for treatment of dogs with digit melanoma. " 07/15/1993 - "The action spectrum (sensitivity per incident photon as a function of wavelength) for melanoma induction shows appreciable sensitivity at 365, 405, and probably 436 nm, suggesting that wavelengths not absorbed directly in DNA are effective in induction. " 01/01/2015 - "The grey horses included appeared to display an attenuated immune response to DNA treatment, although grey horses bearing melanoma responded to this treatment with moderate tumour remission in a preceding study. "
10.	InterferonsIBA 05/01/2008 - "Adjuvant high-dose interferon for cutaneous melanoma is most beneficial for patients with early stage III disease." 01/01/2012 - "This study demonstrates that maintenance therapy by interferon-β is beneficial in the outcome of the disease without substantial toxic effects, especially in patients with stage II melanoma. " 12/01/2002 - "Clinical studies have demonstrated that high dose adjuvant interferon therapy improves disease-free and overall survival among high risk (stage IIb and III) melanoma patients. " 12/01/2005 - "Melanoma patients were treated successfully with high-dose interferon. " 12/01/2000 - "In the randomised clinical trial E1684, the administration of interferon (IFN) alpha-2b resulted in prolonged disease-free and overall survival in high-risk melanoma patients following surgical resection. "

Therapies and Procedures

1.	Immunotherapy 05/01/2015 - "Immunotherapies and BRAF and MEK inhibitors have dramatically improved outcomes in advanced melanoma. " 05/22/2013 - "The treatment of stage IV melanoma has been revolutionized over the last years with the development of immunotherapies that, for the first time, have shown a significant benefit in overall survival, as well as with extremely effective targeted therapies, that also led to improved survival. " 01/01/2013 - "Immunotherapy holds a highly promising treatment approach for metastatic melanoma patients. " 10/01/2003 - "These findings clearly revealed that highly efficient MAA gene transduction to DCs by AdRGD could greatly improve the efficacy of DC-based immunotherapy against melanoma." 07/01/2015 - "The recent developments in BRAF-targeted therapy and checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies for metastatic melanoma patients have led to better tolerability and markedly improved clinical outcomes, including higher objective response rates and longer survival. "
2.	Drug Therapy (Chemotherapy) 12/01/2011 - "Human malignant melanoma is highly resistant to chemotherapy and current immunotherapeutic approaches induce long term remission only in the minority of patients. " 06/01/1993 - "Metastatic melanoma is difficult to treat because of low response rates to most chemotherapy regimens and short remission durations. " 09/01/1991 - "Chemotherapy seems to be more effective in CMM than in adult melanomas, but prophylaxis is also the best therapy in children: early removal of congenital giant pigmented naevi and frequent monitoring, if not excision, of all congenital melanocytic lesions must be considered." 08/01/2010 - "Considering this case, it is assumed that the combination of surgical debulking and chemotherapy are not always beneficial in ovarian malignant melanoma and the prognosis of ovarian malignant melanoma is very poor." 07/01/2008 - "These results show that inhibition of PDI activity increases apoptosis in response to agents which induce ER stress and suggest that the development of potent, small-molecule PDI inhibitors has significant potential as a powerful tool for enhancing the efficacy of chemotherapy in melanoma."
3.	Heterologous Transplantation (Xenotransplantation) 03/24/2011 - "When used alone or in combination with a specific inhibitor of the BRAF(V600E) oncogene, DHODH inhibition led to a marked decrease in melanoma growth both in vitro and in mouse xenograft studies. " 07/01/2015 - "Adoptive transfer of MDLN T cells with high degree of MHC matching to A375 to mice-bearing human A375 melanoma xenografts resulted in dose-dependent improvement in survival. " 04/01/2008 - "In a human melanoma xenograft model, established from a short-term culture of primary melanoma cells, we demonstrated that the Ad5/35-based therapy had a significantly greater anti-neoplastic effect than the homologous Ad5-based therapy. " 09/01/2014 - "The potential therapeutic efficacy of Ad-FKHRL1/TM with TMZ was also assessed in a mouse melanoma xenograft model. " 09/01/1998 - "The therapeutic efficacy of the AdmTyr-tk virus was tested in vivo using a xenograft model of human melanoma. "
4.	Radiotherapy 12/01/2011 - "Ruthenium-106 plaque radiotherapy is an effective treatment for primary malignant iris melanoma, resulting in excellent local control with preservation of vision. " 01/01/1985 - "In this paper, we present a case where radiotherapy was very effective against malignant melanoma. " 01/15/2004 - "In the current study, the authors assessed the efficacy of elective radiotherapy in providing regional (lymph node) control in patients with cutaneous melanoma of the head and neck who were at high risk for lymph node involvement. " 11/01/2011 - "To assess the efficacy of surgery and high-dose split-course radiotherapy in sinonasal head and neck mucosal melanoma (SHNMM). " 07/08/1987 - "[Radiotherapy of malignant melanoma of the choroid with ruthenium-106 applicator gives good results]."
5.	Lymph Node Excision (Lymph Node Dissection) 09/01/1983 - "One of the most controversial areas in the management of malignant melanoma concerns the efficacy of prophylactic lymph node dissection. " 05/01/1981 - "Regional lymphadenectomy offers no improvement in survival in patients with low-risk and moderate-risk melanoma and can play only a minor role at most in improving survival for patients with high-risk melanoma." 11/01/2012 - "Blood specimens were collected from patients with melanoma (n = 331) who were clinically disease-free after complete lymphadenectomy (CLND) before entering onto a randomized adjuvant melanoma vaccine plus bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) versus BCG placebo trial from 30 melanoma centers (United States and international). " 03/01/2013 - "Refinement of surgical techniques, including evaluation of optimal surgical margins, utility of elective lymph node dissection, and incorporation of sentinel lymph node mapping as both a prognostic tool and guide for selective lymphadenectomy have lessened surgical morbidity and improved outcomes for early-stage and locally advanced melanoma. " 07/01/1999 - "Efficacy of lymphatic mapping, sentinel lymphadenectomy, and selective complete lymph node dissection as a therapeutic procedure for early-stage melanoma."