Abstract
That melanoma is a tumor type that can respond to immunotherapies has been well documented. However, it has been equally clear that only a subset of patients is responsive to such immune-based interventions. The response rate to high-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) is around 15% with around 5% of patients achieving a durable complete response (Atkins et al. 1999). While it might be considered that the majority of patients with melanoma simply have tumors that are generally resistant to all forms of therapy, this is probably not the case, as it has been shown that there is not cross-resistance to IL-2 and treatment with chemotherapy (Richards et al. 1992). This simple observation suggests that there might be subsets of melanomas having biologic characteristics that make them responsive to certain modes of therapy; specifically, there may be a molecular subtype of melanoma that is more amenable to treatment with immunotherapeutic approaches. This notion has begun to be investigated, beginning with gene expression profiling of tumors from individual patients undergoing treatment with experimental melanoma vaccines. Similar studies have been initiated in patients treated with IL-2 and with those receiving anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs).
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Gajewski, T.F. (2011). Transcriptional Profiling of Melanoma as a Potential Predictive Biomarker for Response to Immunotherapy. In: Marincola, F., Wang, E. (eds) Immunologic Signatures of Rejection. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7219-4_15
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