Sc. Lattanzi et al., DACARBAZINE, CISPLATIN AND CARMUSTINE, WITH OR WITHOUT TAMOXIFEN, FORMETASTATIC MELANOMA - 5-YEAR FOLLOW-UP, Melanoma research, 5(5), 1995, pp. 365-369
Metastatic melanoma has a grim prognosis. Response rates and survival
of patients treated with combination chemotherapy are not superior to
single-agent chemotherapy. This study seeks to evaluate the objective
response rate and survival of patients with metastatic melanoma treate
d with multiagent chemotherapy, with or without tamoxifen, Forty-two p
atients with metastatic melanoma were treated from March 1982 to Febru
ary 1988 with dacarbazine, cisplatin and carmustine, with or without t
amoxifen, An overall objective response rate of 43% was seen (complete
response rate 17%; partial response rate, 26%), The response rate was
54% for patients treated with tamoxifen and 25% for patients treated
without tamoxifen, but the results did not achieve statistical signifi
cance, Median overall survival was 412 days, and was significantly lon
ger in the tamoxifen-treated group. Combination chemotherapy as descri
bed in this study is well-tolerated. The observation that tamoxifen ap
pears to impact on survival should be interpreted with great caution d
ue to the deficiencies in the design of the trial and small patient nu
mbers, A randomized trial of this regimen vs single-agent chemotherapy
is indicated and is currently being conducted.