Treatment algorithm of metastatic mucosal melanoma

Abstract

Mucosal melanoma is usually considered as the most aggressive and treatment-resistant subtype of melanoma. The unsatisfactory results of standard clinical therapies for metastatic melanoma highlight the needs for effective new therapeutic strategies. Recent successes in the development of new therapies for metastatic melanoma, such as inhibitors for mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway and blocking antibodies against cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) or programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathway, have yielded promising results, expanding the continually evolving landscape of therapeutic options for patients with this disease. In this chapter we review chemotherapies, immunotherapies, targeted therapies and angiogenesis therapies in metastatic mucosal melanoma and discuss their implications.

Keywords: Mucosal melanoma; chemotherapy; immunotherapy; targeted therapy.