Long-term survival of stage IV melanoma patients treated with BOLD combination chemotherapy and intermediate-dose subcutaneous interferon-alpha

Abstract

Background: Immune checkpoint and serine/ threonine-protein kinase inhibitors have become a standard of care for advanced cutaneous melanoma, but dacarbazinebased chemotherapies are occasionally used. This study assessed the long-term efficacy of chemoimmunotherapy (bleomycin, vincristine, lomustine and dacarbazine with/ without subcutaneous interferon-alpha: BOLD-INF-α) as realworld data in patients with metastatic melanoma not eligible for clinical trials. Patients and Methods: Medical data of 146 patients with stage IV melanoma who had received BOLD/BOLD-INFα regimen during 1991-2010 were analyzed. Results: The median overall survival was 8.9 months (95% confidence intervaI=7.5-10.4 months). The 1-year survival rate was 36%, 2-year 18%, and 5-year 13%. The 5-year survival rates in the M1a, M1b and M1c subgroups were 28%, 10% and 6%, respectively. Overall, 7% (n=11) of the patients were alive at the end of the follow-up. Conclusion: Our study showed similar overall survival among patients with stage IV cutaneous melanoma treated with BOLD/BOLD-INFα as noted previously with chemotherapy.