New therapies for unresectable or metastatic cutaneous eyelid and orbital melanoma.

Purpose: Newer treatment options offer the promise of improved outcomes for metastatic and unresectable melanoma. This investigation was performed to review these modalities for cutaneous eyelid and orbital disease.

Methods: A search for articles that were related to this subject was performed in the PubMed database, and the bibliographies of these manuscripts were reviewed to ensure capture of the appropriate literature. Data was abstracted and analyzed.

Results: Historically, patients who suffer from melanoma of the ocular adnexa have fared poorly. Approaches that employ BRAF and mitogen-associated protein kinase inhibitors, immunotherapy, and novel cellular therapies improve outcomes and survival rates, although the side effect profiles of these agents are problematic. Most of the existing strategies have not explored ocular adnexal disease specifically, and treatment plans are generally adapted from the general cutaneous oncology literature.

Conclusions: Thanks to advances in our comprehension of the cellular biology of the disease, the management of unresectable and metastatic melanoma has evolved considerably over the past several years. Newer modalities will likely continue to improve survival and reduce adverse events.