Long-term Survival of Stage IV Melanoma Patients Treated with BOLD Combination Chemotherapy and Intermediate-dose Subcutaneous Interferon-alpha

Background: Immune checkpoint and serine/threonine-protein kinase inhibitors have become a standard of care for advanced cutaneous melanoma, but dacarbazine-based 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 real-world 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.