KEYNOTE SPEAKER PRESENTATION Open Access Surgery in the combination therapies era

Stage IV melanoma has historically had a poor prognosis because of lack of responsiveness to traditional che-motherapeutics. The 1-year survival rate of patients diag-nosed with stage IV melanoma varies between 33 and 66%. Depending on the number, the location, and the resectability of distant metastases, common treatment options comprise surgery, systemic medical therapy, and radiotherapy. Single-agent DTIC has been the standard chemother-apy regimen for metastatic melanoma since 1970s. From a recent meta-analysis Luo et al [1] demonstrated that the substantial benefit from any of the various combina-tions of chemotherapy and biochemotherapy is about 4.2 % with a mean overall survival of 6 months. Patients who have limited sites of metastatic disease,