PURPOSE: The purpose of this article was to review the current state of knowledge regarding the efficacy of adjuvant therapy for melanoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We reviewed the published literature, focusing on randomized clinical trials. RESULTS: There have been no meaningful trials addressing adjuvant chemotherapy in melanoma because all trials have been underpowered. Adjuvant interferon-alpha has been tested both at high dose and at lower doses. None of the trials have shown a reproducible benefit in survival, although the high-dose trials and some of the low-dose trials have shown improvement in time to relapse. These experiences raise the question of whether chronic administration is more important than dose. An adjuvant pegylated interferon-alpha trial using a 5-year treatment period is currently under investigation. At least 7 randomized adjuvant vaccine trials have been published, but none have shown a beneficial effect on relapse-free or overall survival except in subset analyses. CONCLUSIONS: To date, no adjuvant therapy has resulted in improved overall survival. To be attractive as an adjuvant therapy, experience from other tumor types indicates that a chemotherapy regimen should have a response rate of at least 20% in metastatic melanoma. Currently, biochemotherapy is being tested as an adjuvant treatment but other, less toxic, regimens should be sought. Once such a regimen with acceptable toxicity is identified, it would be reasonable to test it as an adjuvant therapy in a properly powered randomized trial. High-dose interferon-alpha for 1 year remains the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved adjuvant therapy for melanoma, but long-term chronic dosing of interferon-alpha may prove more effective than short-term dose schedules. Development of melanoma vaccines remains an appealing and important goal. New technologies and understanding of the immune response against melanoma are leading to novel vaccine strategies designed to break immunologic tolerance against melanoma.
