ABSTRACT
The incidence of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) exceeds that of any other malignancy and the overwhelming majority are keratinocyte cancers: basal cell carcinomas (BCC) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (cSCC). Given their common incidence, they account for considerable morbidity, mortality, and public health spending. These tumors usually show an indolent clinical course and metastasize only rarely. Nevertheless, the metastatic forms of these tumors commonly lead to poor patient outcome. Chemotherapeutic regimens for treatment of these diseases have been mainly based on small case series or clinical trials with limited numbers of patients. However, accumulating evidence regarding their pathophysiology as well as recent advances in targeted treatment options has facilitated the development of novel drugs. Over the past decade, treatments have been approved for several molecular targeting therapies, including hedgehog inhibitors for BCC, monoclonal antibodies targeting anti-programmed death ligand-1, and anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) for cSCC. Here, we discuss their clinical utility and discuss updated systemic treatment strategies for advanced NMSC.
