Current Options and New Insights into Melanoma Management

Dear Colleagues,

Melanoma is a highly aggressive malignant tumor arising from melanocytes found mostly in the skin, but also in the eyes; ears; leptomeninges; gastrointestinal tract; and oral, genital, and sinonasal mucous membranes. Incidence rates are rapidly rising, particularly in White populations, due to increased UVR exposure from natural sunlight and indoor tanning.

Before 2010, with chemotherapy and traditional adoptive cell therapy as the only valid treatments, the prognosis for unresectable melanoma was poor. In recent years, the management of metastatic melanoma has greatly evolved and has become one of the most challenging tasks. The advent of targeted therapy and, more significantly, immunotherapy has deeply improved outcomes. A deep understanding of the molecular, clinical, and pathological features of melanoma and the role of the immune system has resulted in advancements in the treatment of the disease. The MAPK pathway is a key signaling cascade driving cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival, and it plays a key role in the pathogenesis of melanoma. Approximately 50% of melanomas harbor BRAF mutations resulting in constitutive activation of MEK and ERK signaling, providing a rationale for combined BRAF and MEK inhibition. Molecular evaluation also reveals that melanoma is one of the solid tumors with the highest mutational burden, which may predict the response to immunotherapy due to the high amount of neoantigens. Despite many important advances, however, resistance mechanisms to BRAF-targeted treatments and immunotherapies represents the current and future challenge of the optimal management of advanced melanoma, with particular attention paid to the frontline treatment of advanced-stage BRAF-mutant melanoma, comprising about 50% of cases.

In light of the evolving scenario in recent years, the aim of this special issue is to provide an overview of the current options and future directions of the systemic treatment of melanoma, emphasizing new insights into melanoma management. Moreover, we will focus on the current knowledge of molecular landscapes and discuss potential targets in melanoma.

Dr. Maria Chiara Tronconi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• melanoma
• metastatic
• immunotherapy
• pathway
• BRAF
• target
• therapy
• molecular
• research
• pathogenesis