VITILIGO-LIKE LESIONS IN PATIENTS WITH MELANOMA TREATED WITH IMMUNOTHERAPY

The appearance of vitiligo in melanoma patients is relatively frequent , In both diseases, researchers have implicated the immune system resp onse to the tumour or to the patient's own melanocytes, possibly due t o the influence of biological response modulators. To test this hypoth esis, we retrospectively studied 403 patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma: 123 treated with biological response modulators and 280 not treated. One patient who did not receive biological response modulato rs developed vitiligo-like lesions, while the condition appeared in 6 of those treated with biological response modulators (p = 0.0038). Of these 6 patients, 4 were treated with alpha-2-interferon and 2 with th ymostimulin, We concluded that vitiligo-like lesions appear more frequ ently in cutaneous malignant melanoma patients treated with biological response modulators, especially if interferon is used. The frequency of vitiligo-like lesions in patients treated with thymostimulin is not significant in comparison with those left untreated.