Medications
A 2005 review found tentative evidence that statin and fibrate medication may decrease the risk of melanoma. A 2006 review however did not support any benefit. Treatment
Confirmation of the clinical diagnosis is done with a skin biopsy. This is usually followed up with a wider excision of the scar or tumor. Depending on the stage, a sentinel lymph node biopsy may be performed. Controversy exists around trial evidence for sentinel lymph node biopsy; with unclear evidence of benefit as of 2015. Treatment of advanced malignant melanoma is performed from a multidisciplinary approach. Surgery
Excisional biopsies may remove the tumor, but further surgery is often necessary to reduce the risk of recurrence. Complete surgical excision with adequate surgical margins and assessment for the presence of detectable metastatic disease along with short- and long-term followup is standard. Often this is done by a wide local excision (WLE) with 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) margins. Melanoma-in-situ and lentigo malignas are treated with narrower surgical margins, usually 0.2–0.5 cm (0.1–0.2 in). Many surgeons consider 0.5 cm (0.2 in) the standard of care for standard excision of melanoma-in-situ, but 0.2 cm (0.1 in) margin might be acceptable for margin controlled surgery (Mohs surgery, or the double-bladed technique with margin control). The wide excision aims to reduce the rate of tumor recurrence at the site of the original lesion. This is a common pattern of treatment failure in melanoma. Considerable research has aimed to elucidate appropriate margins for excision with a general trend toward less aggressive treatment during the last decades.
Margetuximab, sold under the brand name Margenza, is a chimeric IgG monoclonal antibody medication against HER2 used for the treatment of cancer.The most common adverse drug reactions in combination with chemotherapy are fatigue/asthenia, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, headache, pyrexia, alopecia, abdominal pain, peripheral neuropathy, arthralgia/myalgia, cough, decreased appetite, dyspnea, infusion-related reactions, palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia, and extremity pain.This drug was created by Raven biotechnologies, which was later acquired by MacroGenics. It was engineered to increase affinity for CD16A polymorphisms and decrease affinity for FcγRIIB (CD32B), an inhibitory receptor.It binds to the same target (epitope) as trastuzumab, on the HER2 receptor. Medical uses
Margetuximab is indicated, in combination with chemotherapy, for the treatment of adults with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2 regimens, at least one of which was for metastatic disease. History
It is in phase III clinical trials for combination therapy in metastatic breast cancer in collaboration with Merck. Phase II trials are also in progress for gastric cancer and esophageal cancer.In June 2020, it received orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Efficacy was evaluated in SOPHIA (NCT02492711), a randomized, multicenter, open-label trial of 536 participants with IHC 3+ or ISH-amplified HER2+ metastatic breast cancer who had received prior treatment with other anti-HER2 therapies. Participants were randomized (1:1) to margetuximab plus chemotherapy or trastuzumab plus chemotherapy.