Isolation perfusion with cisplatin for malignant melanoma of the limbs.

The role of hyperthermic isolation perfusion in the treatment of advanced melanoma of the limbs is clearly important. However, attention has in the past been focussed mainly on surgical aspects of the procedure. Whereas, equivalent interest in chemotherapy considerations has been lacking. A group of 15 patients have been treated by hyperthermic isolated perfusion for advanced melanoma of the limbs. The chemotherapeutic agent used was cisplatin. The follow-up period was 6 to 60 months. None of these patients had any sign or symptoms of toxicity from the drug. Twelve of these 15 patients are free of disease currently. There was one case of mortality due to unrelated cause and two cases of mortality due to disseminated disease which developed 6 months and 30 months, respectively, posttreatment. Since not uncommon toxic side effects from other drugs used for this procedure is significant, these results suggest that cisplatin may be used as an alternative chemotherapeutic agent in isolation perfusion for advanced melanoma of the extremities.