Adjuvant Vemurafenib Does Not Improve Disease-Free Survival in Melanoma

Source: Oncology Nurse Advisor, March 2018

Vemurafenib adjuvant therapy does not improve disease-free survival (DFS) among patients with resected stage IIC to IIIB melanoma, according to findings published in The Lancet Oncology.
The standard of care for patients with stage II to III melanoma is surgical resection, but despite successful treatment, patients face high rates of disease recurrence and death. Clinical studies exploring potential adjuvant therapies have demonstrated efficacy but also substantial toxicity; further investigation for safe and effective adjuvant therapy is necessary for this patient population.
For this double-blind phase 3 study, researchers randomly assigned 498 patients with stage IIC-IIIA-IIIB (cohort 1) or stage IIIC (cohort 2) BRAFV600 mutation-positive melanoma who had undergone complete resection to receive vemurafenib 960 mg twice daily or placebo for 1 year. Three-hundred and fourteen patients were enrolled in cohort 1 and 184 patients to cohort 2. The median follow-up was 30.8 months in cohort 1 and 33.5 months in cohort 2.