Metastatic Melanoma: Current Status and Future Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

Cutaneous melanoma is not the most common skin cancer but it is the most significant cause of skin cancer mortality. Studies such as MSLT II showed that approximately 30% of patients with stage III will progress and develop distant metastases. Just a decade ago, such progression was treated with cytotoxic chemotherapy with a single agent or in combination, which in some regimes included high-doses of interleukin 2 (IL-2). The success of such treatments was limited. Only 5-10% of individuals responded to drugs and the prognosis of patients was dismal, with medium survival measured in months.

In 2011, the US FDA approved the first two drugs for the treatment of metastatic cutaneous melanoma: the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab and the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib. Since then, additional check point inhibitors and molecularly targeted agents have been tested and approved in a metastatic setting. Consequently, the goals of treatment have changed from palliation to effective and even durable clinical disease control for the majority of patients. Despite these achievements, clinicians sometimes still struggle with the most appropriate first line treatment in the case of metastatic cutaneous melanoma: choosing from novel systemic therapies while trying not to neglect the role of surgery and radiotherapy.

The key to understanding therapy failure and drug resistance lies in understanding the molecular pathways responsible for the development and progression of melanoma, as well as the relevance of detecting the specific molecular markers of each cutaneous melanoma subtype.

We hope, that this Special Issue, which will include novel insights into cutaneous melanoma translational research, targeted molecular research, molecular biomarkers and immunotherapy, will add valuable pieces to the puzzle of the rapidly evolving treatment landscape of metastatic disease. 

Dr. Barbara Perić
Prof. Dr. Maja Čemažar
Guest Editors

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. Biomedicines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). 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.

• cutaneous melanoma
• distant metastases
• molecular pathways, biomarkers, driver genes
• targeted therapy
• check point inhibitors
• systemic toxicity