A trial looking at interferon treatment for melanoma skin cancer

This trial compared interferon for one month with interferon for one year as treatment for melanoma.

Doctors sometimes treat melanoma with interferon (also called Roferon or Intron A). Interferon helps to delay or stop melanoma coming back after surgery.

Some people have interferon 5 days a week for 4 weeks, and then 3 times a week for about another 48 weeks. So they have treatment for a year altogether.

Doctors thought that interferon might work just as well if people had only the first 4 weeks of treatment and not the extra 48 weeks. But they weren’t sure. Interferon can have serious side effects, so it is important that people don’t have it if they don’t need it.

In this trial the researchers compared 4 weeks of treatment to treatment for a year. The aim of the trial was to see which was better. They looked at how well the treatment worked and what the side effects were.

This was a pilot study. If the results were promising, the researchers would go on to do a larger phase 3 trial.