Efficacy and Safety of Immunotherapeutic Strategies for the Treatment of MART-1-Expressing Melanoma: Systematic Review of Clinical Trials

Abstract

Simple Summary Immunotherapy has become an important treatment strategy for patients with advanced melanoma. Melanoma antigen recognized by T cells 1 (MART-1) has been extensively investigated as a target for a variety of immunotherapeutic approaches, including DNA- and peptide-based vaccines, adoptive cell therapies, and combination strategies. However, the clinical efficacy and safety of these approaches have not been systematically compared. This systematic review summarizes the available evidence from published clinical trials and describes the reported efficacy and safety of different MART-1-targeted immunotherapies. Higher objective response rates were reported in some adoptive cell therapy studies, whereas vaccine studies generally reported fewer immune-related adverse events. These observations require cautious interpretation because treatment regimens, patient populations, and adverse-event reporting differed across studies. These findings provide an overview of the current clinical evidence and may support the future development of more effective and safer MART-1-targeted immunotherapies for melanoma.