Targeted Therapies and Immuno-Oncology in Melanoma

Dear Colleagues,

We are in the midst of a revolution in the treatment of melanoma. Less than a decade ago, patients with metastatic melanoma had no effective treatment options and prognosis was extremely poor, with melanoma being largely resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Now, newly developed immunotherapies and targeted therapies are changing this treatment landscape in dramatic ways.

Small molecule inhibitors targeting components of the MAPK signaling pathway (including inhibitors of BRAF and MEK) can induce rapid and dramatic tumor shrinkage. However, these benefits are usually not sustained long term. Identifying mechanisms of resistance and discovering approaches to overcome them has therefore become a key research question. Also of great value would be the identification of treatment strategies that prevent the development of resistance in the first place.

In contrast to targeted therapies, checkpoint blockade immunotherapy (for example, anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA-4) can induce long-lasting tumor regression. However, these deep responses are relatively rare, and the same treatment produces little or no benefit for other patients. The great challenge therefore remains to increase response rates so that all melanoma patients can benefit from this potentially curative treatment. This goal would be significantly advanced by a better understanding of the biology underpinning effective anti-cancer immune responses, and the identification of new therapeutic targets and combination strategies. And until these therapies become effective for all patients, the development of accurate methods to predict who is going to respond will support precision medicine approaches that avoid unnecessary toxicities and  target these expensive therapies to patients who will actually benefit.

This Special Issue welcomes submissions of original clinical research articles, case reports and high-quality reviews that address these and related questions, as well as articles on other novel approaches to melanoma therapy.

Dr. Lisa M. Ebert
Guest Editor

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• melanoma
• targeted therapy
• immunotherapy
• checkpoint blockade
• precision medicine
• tumor immunology