The adjuvant therapies in melanoma are given when a patient is clinically free of disease after surgical treatment of 
the primary high risk-tumor. The interferon adjuvant therapy is intended to prolong overall survival in melanoma patients, according to the journal which is issued on November, 2007 at Alberta Cancer Board guideline.
According to the Guideline, patients with in-situ less than 2 mm thick, 2 – 4 mm thick but non-ulcerated or node-negative or early-stage melanoma will be cured by only primary excision, there’s no adjusment therapy recommended in this particular condition. One with 2.01-4.0 mm thick, ulcerated, T4 in staging, positive sentinel nodes, and patient who had nodal basin relapse is recommended for interferon alpha adjuvant therapy consideration. Therefore, a patient with high risk condition following complete surgical of the primary tumor is deserved for interferon-alpha adjuvant therapy.
There are more explanation about recommendation concerning the interferon-alpha adjuvant such its contraindications, what baseline laboratory should be performed before initiating interferon adjuvant, pre-medication treatment, induction and maintenance phase, the side effects of high-dose adjuvant interferon therapy, follow-up and interferon adjuvant special considerations.
Have complete read about the melanoma guideline, The Use of Interferon for Adjuvant Therapy in Cutaneous Melanoma in pdf filetype (source: cancerboard.ab.ca).
