Long-term survival of patients with metastatic melanoma (MM) treated with dacarbazine (DTIC) or temozolomide (TMZ)

9054 Background: Patients with metastatic melanoma (MM) generally have a poor prognosis, with a median survival of 6 to 9 months. There is a small proportion of patients who achieve long term survival (LTS), however, it is unclear whether LTS reflects sensitivity to systemic therapy, indolent tumor biology or host immune factors. Dacarbazine (DTIC) is the only approved chemotherapy for the treatment of MM, although temozolomide (TMZ) has similar efficacy. There is limited information as to the frequency of complete response (CR) following DTIC or TMZ, duration of response and whether LTS occurs only in patients who achieve a CR. We sought to identify all patients with MM treated with either DTIC (alone or in combinations) or TMZ at the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA) who achieved LTS defined as survival ≥ 18 months from the time of administration of chemotherapy. Methods: All patients with MM treated with either DTIC or TMZ from January 1, 1988 to February 1, 2006 were identified in the BCCA pharmacy database. Th...