Experimental treatments for blocking melanoma metastasis

The incidence and mortality rate of cutaneous melanoma have been increasing more rapidly than any other cancer over the last three decades. The leading cause of mortality in melanoma patients is metastasis formation. Thus, it is necessary to find treatments that can block metastasis to improve survival of melanoma patients. The production of metastases is a highly complex process by which some melanoma cells move away from the primary tumor and colonize other organs. This process requires phenotypical changes that allow melanoma cells to migrate, survive in the blood circulation, extravasate, and proliferate in a tissue with a different microenvironment. Accordingly, new therapies aimed to block metastasis must target cellular functions like adhesion, migration, invasion, and homing. Having a different mechanism of action than cytotoxic and cytostatic drugs, such therapies could be used in combination with the current ones. This chapter reviews some key signaling pathways that affect melanoma metastasis and discusses the targeting of those pathways in different preclinical models. Such strategies may become the basis for the generation of new therapeutic alternatives for melanoma.