New approaches to targeted therapy for metastatic melanoma in the presence of rare genetic changes in the tumor

Over the past 10 years, there has been a substantial melanoma treatment breakthrough that is associated with the design and use of targeted drugs. For a long period of time, BRAF/MEK and c-KIT inhibitors, as well as immunotherapy drugs have been the only targeted drugs in the treatment of melanoma. Triple-negative tumors lacking standard BRAF, NRAS, and c-KIT mutations account for up to 40% according to various sources. There are no effective treatments for this group after negative changes during immunotherapy. Therefore, in recent years, there has been an active search for new points of application of drugs to tumor DNA, its proteins and microenvironment. Investigations are underway on both driver mutations and somatic ones with oncogenic properties. However, at the moment, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been approved only NTRK inhibitors to treat melanoma with rare genetic alterations. This review considers some rare molecular genetic features of tumor cells that can be used in clinical practice in the future. © 2023, Media Sphera Publishing Group. All rights reserved.