Last decade brought new achievements in the
melanoma research, which resulted in an important changes in the clinical management of stage III
melanoma. The article summarizes recent updates with particular focus on practical aspects. Results from surgical studies, Multicenter Selective
Lymphadenectomy Trial II (MSLT-II) and German Dermatologic Cooperative Oncology Group (DeCOG-SLT) proved that surgical dogmatic approach that all sentinel node
melanoma metastasis warrants completion
lymphadenectomy is no longer valid; omission of completion
lymphadenectomy in large proportion of sentinel node positive
melanoma patients has no negative impact on survival rates. Moreover oncological trials (COMBI-AD, EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 and CheckMate 238) showed that in stage III
melanoma patients' chances of recurrence-free survival can be improved by 10-20% by modern
immunotherapy and/or
molecular targeted therapy. These findings led to fall of another dogma in oncology: lack of effective adjuvant
therapy for stage III
melanoma at acceptable toxicity. At the end of the day in 2021 modern multidisciplinary approach incorporating newest findings offer stage III
melanoma patients less surgical complications of better tailored surgery and longer survival in result of efficient adjuvant
therapy.