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August 26, 2010 > Targeted therapy success in metastatic melanoma
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, FRACP (Damon Runyon Fellow ‘95-‘98) and colleagues at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and a team of U.S. researchers reported the success of a Phase I clinical trial of the drug PLX4032 in treatment of metastatic melanoma. Mutation of a protein called BRAF causes the protein to become overactive in more than half of all melanomas. PLX4032 inhibits BRAF, resulting in complete or partial tumor regression in over 80% of patients with mutated BRAF. Patients begin to feel better within a week of starting treatment, giving them a significantly improved quality of life. The results were reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.