Novel anti-melanoma treatment: focus on immunotherapy Chinese Journal of Cancer Authors ′ Affiliations: 1Department of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor,

Melanoma is an intractable cancer that is aggressive, lethal, and metastatic. The prognosis of advanced melanoma is very poor because it is insensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The incidence of melanoma has been ascending stably for years worldwide, accompanied by increasing mortality. New approaches to managing this deadly disease are much anticipated to enhance the cure rate and to extend clinical benefits to patients with metastatic melanoma. Due to its high degree of immunogenicity, melanoma could be a good target for immunotherapy, which has been developed for decades and has achieved certain progress. This article provides an overview of immunotherapy for melanoma. Key words Melanoma, immunotherapy, tumor vaccine, cytokine, CTLA-4, PD-1 www.cjcsysu.com Chinese Anti-Cancer AssociationCACA 458 Melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer with a high mortality and a poor prognosis[1]. In advanced and metastatic stages, the median overall survival (OS) ranges from 6 to 9 months, and the 1-year survival rate ranges from 30 % to 60%[2,3]. Traditional therapies (surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy) are no