Metastatic melanoma has a poor prognosis, but treatment with high-dose interleukin-2 (IL2) can extend survival.

Now, a combination of IL2 therapy and activation of patients' immune systems using personalised vaccines made from their own tumour cells has been shown to improve survival rates even more than IL2 alone, according to a new article in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

The article is available free on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website.

"High-Dose IL2 in Metastatic Melanoma: Better Survival in Patients Immunized with Antigens from Autologous Tumor Cell Lines" describes a statistically significant improvement in survival for patients who received IL2 plus tumour cell-based immunotherapy. Authors Robert Dillman, Carol DePriest and Stephanie McClure, Hoag Institute for Research and Education, Hoag Family Cancer Institute, and Cancer Biotherapy Research Group, Newport Beach, CA, found that administration of immunotherapy after IL2 treatment resulted in longer patient survival than if individuals were vaccinated before receiving IL2.

"This is an important addition to the literature on IL2 treatment for metastatic melanoma demonstrating that personalised vaccine therapy contributed to an increased survival rate," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Division of Radiation Biology, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Source: Liebert