Evaluation of Plasma Interleukin-6 in Melanoma Patients as a Prognostic and Checkpoint Immunotherapy Predictive Biomarker

Treatment of advanced melanoma has been revolutionized by targeted therapy (TT) and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), but not all patients respond; identification of predictive biomarkers remains a critical need. Our previous investigations showed the circulating level of CRP as an independent melanoma prognostic biomarker (Fang et al., 2017, 2016, 2015). IL-6 is upstream of CRP, induces hepatocyte release of CRP, and is a pleiotropic inflammatory cytokine involved in progression of melanoma (Hoejberg et al., 2012).