Yervoy and Vemurafenib Excel in Skin Cancer Drug Trials

Scientists have hailed the clinical trial performance of a pair of new advanced skin cancer drug treatments at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's meeting in Chicago, which takes place from 4-8 June 2011.

Addressing those present, one team of scientists described the findings of one trial involving 675 patients, all with advanced melanoma, and a drug called Vemurafenib. This seemed to produce a 20 per cent survival rate boost, compared to straightforward chemotherapy.

Separately, another group covered the performance of a different drug, Yervoy (Ipilimumab), which looks as if it could extend life expectancy by some years.

Skin Cancer Drug Trials

"For the first time, we have effective treatments becoming available for melanoma", Cancer Research UK representative Professor Peter Johnson said, in a statement on the new skin cancer drug trials

Sixteen per cent of the Vemurafenib patients had died six months after beginning a course of the drug but approximately 36 per cent might have been expected to have died without it.

Vemurafenib targets a gene common to advanced skin cancer patients called BRAF and, at an early stage in its trial, it was decided by the research team that all participants should be getting it - so effective was its performance. Usually, a patient test base is divided into those that get the drug being tested and a control group, which doesn't get the treatment but which gets a current market product, so that there's a base for comparison.

Elsewhere, Yervoy might be able to help advanced melanoma patients live much longer than, otherwise, they would have done, if the example of several patients that have been given it is anything to go by. According to the scientists involved in the Yervoy trial, a number of those that have been supplied with the drug via infusion have survived for years longer than was considered likely.

Vemurafenib and Yervoy

European drug regulators are presently investigating the trial results produced by both Vemurafenib and Yervoy and, if they approve them, the skin cancer treatments could make their way onto the marketplace sometime soon.

"Both show how the research we have been doing is feeding through into help for patients", Professor Johnson added. "It is a first step but a vitally important one, and it encourages us to redouble our efforts for people with this most dangerous type of skin cancer."

Figures released by the American Cancer Society highlight how, every 12 months, in the region of 160,000 advanced melanoma cases are identified around the world. US residents account for 70,000 of these while, in the UK, there's about 11,000 people living with the condition at any one time.

See also:

Weed's Sap is Potential Skin Cancer Treatment

Roche's RG7204 Shines in Skin Cancer Drug Trial