Driving in the melanoma landscape.

The melanoma landscape is rapidly evolving. The melanoma oncologists have now the first successful targets for therapy that have a genetic base--albeit in rare forms of the malignancy. Once melanoma becomes part of the Cancer Genome Atlas consortium, a comprehensive map of genetic changes will be established to point the field to true drivers of the disease that will become new targets for therapy. The same abnormalities will also serve as biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and therapy follow-up. Melanomas as a group are heterogeneous as are tumor cells within one lesion. New strategies will move towards individualized therapies and combination therapies to target all cells within a tumor.