Dermatology Online Journal

Melanoma claims approximately 9,000 lives in the United States annually [1].  Patients who present with satellite, in-transit, or distant cutaneous metastases have limited treatment options and the prognosis for patients with metastatic disease remains poor. Surgical excision remains the most common treatment modality for cutaneous metastases, but may not address concurrent subclinical in-transit metastases. Other palliative treatment options include Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) and isolated limb perfusion (ILP).  Although intravenous IL-2 has been used for treatment of metastatic melanoma since 1998, intralesional IL-2 has only now been included in the most recent National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines after case series and phase I/II clinical trials have shown promising results against Stage IIIc and IV M1a melanoma. Intralesional IL-2 protocols have varied markedly from study to study and there are no consensus guidelines available to help direct treatment.  Herein, we present a detailed protocol for the administration of intralesional IL-2 that has been successfully used at two different institutions for treatment of cutaneous melanoma metastases.