Skip Navigation

Annals of Oncology 2009 20(Supplement 6):vi41-vi50; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdp253
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Schadendorf, D.
Right arrow Articles by Hersey, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Schadendorf, D.
Right arrow Articles by Hersey, P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society for Medical Oncology. All rights reserved.
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. users are entitle to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and the European Society for Medical Oncology are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Annals of Oncology issue: Melanoma: Perspectives of the Global Melanoma Task Force [View the issue table of contents]

Articles

Immunotherapy of distant metastatic disease

D. Schadendorf1,*, S. M. Algarra2, L. Bastholt3, G. Cinat4, B. Dreno5, A. M. M. Eggermont6, E. Espinosa7, J. Guo8, A. Hauschild9, T. Petrella10, J. Schachter11 and P. Hersey12

1 Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany
2 Department of Oncology, Clinica Universitaria de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
3 Department of Oncology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark
4 Department of Oncology, Instituto de Oncologia Angel Roffo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
5 Clinique of Dermatologie, Hôtel Dieu, Nantes Cedex 01, France
6 Department of Surgical Oncology, Erasmus University Medical Center–Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
7 Department of Oncology, Hospital La Paz, Madrid, Spain
8 Department of Oncology, Peking University School of Oncology, Beijing, China
9 Department of Dermatology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany
10 Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Center, Toronto, Canada
11 The Ella Institute for Treatment and Research of Melanoma, Tel Hashomer, Israel
12 Immunology and Oncology Unit, Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital, New South Wales, Australia

* Correspondence to: Dirk Schadendorf, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Essen, Hufelandstrasse 55, 45122 Essen, Germany; Tel: +49-201-723-2431; Fax: +49-201-723-5935; E-mail: dirk.schadendorf{at}uk-essen.de

Immunotherapy of metastatic melanoma consists of various approaches leading to specific or non-specific immunomodulation. The use of FDA-approved interleukin (IL)-2 alone, in combination with interferon {alpha}, and/or with various chemotherapeutic agents (biochemotherapy) is associated with significant toxicity and poor efficacy that does not improve overall survival of 96% of patients. Many studies with allogeneic and autologous vaccines have demonstrated no clinical benefit, and some randomised trials even showed a detrimental effect in the vaccine arm. The ongoing effort to develop melanoma vaccines based on dendritic cells and peptides is driven by advances in understanding antigen presentation and processing, and by new techniques of vaccine preparation, stabilisation and delivery. Several agents that have shown promising activity in metastatic melanoma including IL-21 and monoclonal antibodies targeting cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (anti-CTLA-4) or CD137 are discussed. Recent advances of intratumour gene transfer technologies and adoptive immunotherapy, which represents a promising although technically challenging direction, are also discussed.

Key words: adoptive immunotherapy, anti-CTLA-4, interferon, interleukin, metastatic melanoma, vaccine


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.