Approaches to the treatment of oligometastatic melanoma in the era of immunotargeted therapy

Oligometastatic disease is a term that describes the state of a tumor between a localized tumor and a disseminated process, when all detected tumor lesions are accessible to local action. The concept of oligometastatic disease in advanced cutaneous melanoma has existed since the 1970–1980s, and the role of metastasectomy of solitary lesion is approved in the treatment strategy for this disease. However, the role of local methods before the introduction of modern systemic therapy was quite modest due to the aggressive and often primary disseminated course of the disease. The introduction of immunotherapy and modern targeted therapy in the treatment of metastatic melanoma has significantly increased the number of patients meeting the criteria for oligometastatic disease with the possibility of metastasectomy. Currently, there is no clear algorithm or specific sequence for combining systemic treatment methods with surgical and other local methods. Conditional neoadjuvant immunotherapy is being actively discussed even for primary resectable melanoma metastases; this concept is based on the higher effectiveness of immunotherapy in the presence of tumor tissue in the body and already has practical confirmation from recent studies. In determining the tactics for oligometastatic melanoma, a multidisciplinary approach is extremely important, including a balanced assessment of possible local surgical options, the use of radiotherapy and mandatory systemic disease control. By successfully applying and combining these approaches, it is possible to achieve outstanding success in controlling the disease in a significant proportion of patients. This review provides an analysis of the main and most important works on systemic and surgical treatment of oligometastatic melanoma.