Personal Injury Law

'Unprecedented' Melanoma Drug Shrinks Tumors

By Jane Akre

Melanomas on the left, normal moles on the right/ NCI

30 Percent Reduction in Tumors

For patients with advanced melanoma, an experimental drug that seems to rapidly and dramatically shrink tumors is "unprecedented."

Tumors seemed to turn off, said Dr. Paul Chapman of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York to WebMD at a news briefing.

In 19 out of 27 patients with advanced melanoma, or skin cancer, tumors shrank by 30 percent or greater. In two patients the tumors "completely healed."

Traditional chemotherapy drugs usually shrink tumors by about 15 percent.

The new pill is PLX4032 made by Plexxicon Inc., which has licensed it to Roche. The drug works by blocking the gene activity of BRAF, which is linked to half of melanomas.

Larger clinical trials are continuing into next year.

Melanoma will kill more than 8,600 Americans this year according to the American Cancer Society. An estimated 68,720 new cases will be reported in the U.S. and 160,000 worldwide are diagnosed.

Melanoma can be treated if caught early but if it spreads, the likelihood of a cure drops dramatically and it typically kills within a year.

The deadly skin cancer often results from overexposure to ultraviolet rays and the risk increases with age and among light complexioned people. Increasingly tanning beds are suspected of causing melanoma.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has now re-classified the UV rays used in sun beds (the same as those in actual sunlight) from "probably" carcinogenic to a flat-out "carcinogenic to humans" after a recently published cancer study found that a person's risk of developing melanoma is 75% higher if he or she starts tanning before the age of 30. #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).