Advanced Melanoma - New Skin Cancer Treatment Revealed

A new breakthrough in the treatment of advanced melanoma skin cancer was announced in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, with the new experimental treatment said to have been successful in reducing the size of a skin cancer tumor by up to 80 percent. The new treatment is currently known as PLX4032, and consists of an orally administered medication which is said to target a specific protein that “feeds” the cancerous growth, known as “BRAF”.

Paul Chapman, senior author of the study and a doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, commented on the success of PLX4032 in reducing the size of a cancerous growth, “We have never seen an 80 percent response rate in melanoma, or in any other solid tumor for that matter, so this is remarkable.”

The protein BRAF was only recently discovered to be feeding the growth of cancerous tissue, and because PLX4032 actually neutralizes BRAF at a cellular level, it allowed scientists to examine whether it would be possible to stop or even reverse the growth of a tumor by cutting off the supply of BRAF. The success of this test is really exciting news for people suffering from advanced skin cancers, as the prognosis for survival after being diagnosed with advanced skin cancer is usually just nine months or less.

Chapman remains cautious as to the long term success of PLX4032, and said “We don’t know if treatment really improves overall survival of melanoma patients”, but added that the development and trials of PLX4032 would continue, and hopes that the drug may be combined with other anti-melanoma drugs in the future in order to improve its efficacy in fighting advanced skin cancers.