Nine years' experience of BELD combination chemotherapy (bleomycin, vindesine, CCNU and DTIC) for metastatic melanoma.

Abstract

During the 9-year period from 1982 to 1991, 72 patients with melanoma were treated with a 5-day quadruple drug chemotherapy regime (BELD) comprising bleomycin, vindesine (Eldesine), CCNU (Lomustine) and DTIC. Forty-three patients had stage III melanoma, 34 of whom had evaluable disease. Of these 34, six (17.6%) achieved a complete response (CR), eight (23.5%) had a partial response (PR), five (14.7%) had stabilized disease (SD) and 15 (44.1%) had progressive disease (PD). Overall median survival of stage III melanoma patients was 38 weeks. Median survival of responders (CR + PR) was 47 weeks and 21 weeks for non-responders (SD + PD) (P < 0.005). Median follow-up time was 38 weeks. Following these encouraging results, 30 patients with stage II melanoma received BELD chemotherapy as adjuvant therapy after regional node dissection and clearance. Adjuvant BELD chemotherapy did not alter survival in these patients. BELD combination chemotherapy is well-tolerated, the main problems being nausea, vomiting, and leucopenia. We have maintained a combined response rate (CR + PR) of 41.1% for stage III disease. This is comparable with other combination chemotherapy regimes, which have as yet not been superseded by the newer biological therapies.