Combination chemotherapy with dacarbazine and lomustine in disseminated malignant melanoma.

Thirty-eight patients with disseminated malignant melanoma (stage IV) who had not received previous chemotherapy were given lomustine 50 to 80 mg/m2 orally on day 1 and dacarbazine 400 mg intravenously on days 1 to 3 with intervals of 6 weeks. Three of the 36 evaluable patients showed complete response (8%), 4 partial response (11%), and 5 had stable disease for at least 3 months (13%). The responding patients had metastases confined to cutaneous, nodal or pulmonary sites. None of the patients with liver, osseous or cerebral metastases, or patients with Karnofsky's status of less than 80, responded. Patients with more than two years from the diagnosis to the start of the chemotherapy were more likely to achieve objective response (p less than 0.05). Eighty-four per cent of the patients had nausea or vomiting, but otherwise toxicity was minimal.