LOCAL HYPERTHERMIA AND SYSTEMIC CHEMOTHERAPY FOR TREATMENT OF RECURRENT MELANOMA

Thirty-two patients with recurrent (skin) or metastatic (skin, node, o r both) melanoma have been treated with a hyperthermia-cisplatin regim en. The hyperthermic treatment was carried out for 60 minutes at 43 de grees C with the MHS-SMA and the Sapic SVO3 ALENIA devices once a week . When the tumor temperature reached 42 degrees C, cisplatin was admin istered at a dosage of 50 mg/m(2) given by intravenous bolus infusion. The treatment was repeated four times and the tumor response evaluate d 4 weeks after the last treatment. Significant systemic or local toxi city was not seen. In terms of results, there were 9 patients with com plete responses (28.1%), 13 with partial responses (40.6%), 8 with no change (25.0%), and two with disease progression (6.3%). The objective response rate was 68.7%. The response duration for those with complet e responses ranged from 4 to 49 months (median 20 months). The median time to progression for patients with partial responses and those with no change was 6 and 5 months, respectively, with ranges of 1-7 and 1- 10 months, respectively. The 4-year actuarial survival rates were 47.6 % and 20.3% for the complete and incomplete responders, respectively. These results can be considered satisfactory, taking into account that most patients were pretreated with radiotherapy, chemotherapy or both , confirming the therapeutic potential of the hyperthermia and cisplat in regimen.