The pathway ahead in melanoma trials.

Reviewing treatment modalities for melanoma provides many sobering reminders that advances in our scientific understanding have not yet translated into meaningful clinical benefit. As clearly delineated by the authors, the “standard” treatment of dacarbazine chemotherapy has a poor response rate and lacks durability. A variety of other agents have been tested as single agents and numerous attempts have been made at combined chemotherapies, but in head-to-head trials with dacarbazine, no other approach has proven to result in superior overall survival. Thus, the dismal prognosis for metastatic disease remains largely unaffected by current treatments.