Therapeutic vaccine for melanoma: the untouched grail?

Abstract

Malignant melanoma remains the most lethal form of cancer, especially for those with lymph node involvement or metastases. Owing to its intrinsic nature of highly resistance to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy, advanced melanoma was considered by most to be indolent, defying any tempts to cure. For decades, there had been studies on the adjuvant treatment in order to lower recurrence rate and to improve the likelihood of response. Clinical trials are currently ongoing to explore the role of specific active immunotherapy (vaccine) in the treatment of patients with high risk of recurrence and metastasis. The current paper under evaluation described one randomized Phase III trial of the therapeutic vaccine Melacine plus low-dose IFN-alpha(2b), which had an effect comparable to standard high-dose interferon-alpha(2b) but with less toxicity.