Intralesional interferon‐alpha therapy in advanced malignant melanoma

Abstract

Fifty‐one evaluable patients with histologically proven metastatic melanoma and at least one skin metastasis were treated intralesionally with interferon‐alpha (IFN‐α). Twenty‐six of the patients were given highly purified natural IFN‐α 6 Mio. IU three times per week. Twenty‐five patients were given 10 Mio. IU three times per week of a recombinant IFN‐α2b (rIFN‐α2b). All patients were examined for systemic and local responses to this treatment. The systemic responses consisted of nine objective remissions, each of which lasted from 2 to 18 or more months. There were 24 complete or partial local responses. Forty‐two of the 51 patients had at least two skin metastases so that IFN‐injected and noninjected tumor sites could be compared. The difference between systemic and local efficacy was highly significant statistically (P = 0.0004). The results show that IFN‐α has clinically observable antitumor activity in malignant melanoma. Copyright © 1988 American Cancer Society