Although of limited therapeutic value, the SLN procedure has proven a useful prognostic tool for the assessment of melanoma relapse and mortality risk. Moreover, the SLN is of great value for the assessment of immunological interventions for melanoma. Since early melanoma development is accompanied by impaired immune effector functions primarily in the SLN, there is a strong rationale for therapeutic immune modulation of the SLN aimed at strengthening cellular immune functions.
The investigator now propose a phase I dose escalation study to administer intradermally a single clinical dose of tremelimumab/anti-CTLA-4 locally at the primary tumor excision site of patients with clinical stage I/II melanoma. Such a single local administration aimed at conditioning of the SLN should allow for the use of relatively low anti-CTLA-4 dosages without excess risk of autoimmune effects.
