6.5.1　Introduction to the drugs for melanoma treat...

Surgery is a very effective treatment for early-stage melanoma patients，which results in the above 95％of 5-year overall survival rate of stage Ⅰ　patients.Except for surgery，radiotherapy，chemotherapy，and rapidly evolving immunotherapy are also used in melanoma treatment.However，the 3-year survival rate of patients with metastatic melanoma are below 15％.Thus，developing a new melanoma treatment plan is of great significance.Chemotherapy is a traditional cancer treatment strategy.Dacarbazine（DTIC）is a standard chemotherapeutic drug that has been approved by the US FDA for metastatic melanoma treatment.Yet，there is no data to confirm that DTIC improves the survival of patients.In addition，there are some other chemotherapeutic drugs that have been tested in clinical or pre-clinical studies，such as doxorubicin（DOX），cisplatin，paclitaxel（PTX），and taxanes.Recently，great progress has been achieved in melanoma immunotherapy.Earlier immunotherapeutic agents，such as interferon-alpha（IFN-α）and interleukin-2（IL-2），are not ideal for improving the overall survival or responsive rates of patients.The subsequent development of monoclonal antibody drugs，such as ipilimumab and nivolumab，significantly improves the overall survival rates of drug-responsive patients，yet problems such as high toxicity and low responsive rates still exist.The related content is discussed in melanoma immunotherapy related chapter.(https://www.daowen.com)