The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) published the first Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) on immunotherapy for the treatment of Cutaneous Melanoma in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology in 2013.
On May 30, 2018, SITC published an update in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC), the society's open access, peer-reviewed online journal.
SITC's Cancer Immunotherapy Guidelines program is a collection of CPGs developed by multi-disciplinary panels of experts who draw from their own practical experience as well as evidence in the published literature and clinical trial data to develop evidence- and consensus-based recommendations. SITC uses as a model the Institute of Medicine's 2011 "Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines" to ensure the recommendations are unbiased, transparent and balanced will aid oncologists in effective clinical decision-making concerning patient selection, toxicity management, response evaluation, and the sequencing or combination of therapies, among other topics.
This update to the Cutaneous Melanoma CPG was developed collaboratively through the efforts of an expert panel that convened to discuss the current therapeutic landscape. This CPG provides recommendations for the use of immunotherapies including checkpoint inhibitor monotherapies and combinations, as well as oncolytic viruses, interferon-α2, and interleukin-2 in various disease stages and settings. Additionally, the CPG include discussion for patient selection, sequencing or combination of therapies, using and screening for predictive biomarkers, managing adverse events, selecting optimal clinical endpoints, and patient quality of life issues.