Immunotherapy of malignant melanoma

The malignant melanoma is because of its ability to form metastasis even at early stages of disease the deadliest of all skin tumors. Its incidence ri ses faster than that of any other human tumor. Today, treatment of melanoma is based on surgical removal, and depending on the stage, chemotherapy and /or biological response modifiers. The response and cure rates are, however , not satisfactory and there is, therefore, ongoing research for other appr oaches. The identification of melanoma antigenic peptides like Melan-A, gp1 00 and ras peptides has opened new possibilities in the treatment of malign ant melanoma. The research on generating mainly T cell mediated immune resp onses against malignant melanoma using many different approaches like injec tion of dendritic cells pulsed with melanoma specific peptides, injection o f in vitro with cytokines stimulated T cells, immunization with peptides in the presence of different adjuvants, immunization with genetically modifie d melanoma cells etc. has produced many encouraging results. However, the f uture of tumor-vaccine development still lies in generation of more potent vaccination protocols.