A researcher at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center helped develop a combination drug therapy that was approved today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat metastatic melanoma. The therapy shows great promise for extending the lives of people with an advanced form of the disease, and it does so without causing a secondary skin cancer, a side effect seen in some patients who took only one of the drugs.
MRV Research
Vemurafenib-Cediranib Combination Could Improve Response in Melanoma Patients
A combination of vemurafenib and cediranib might induce a complete response in some patients with vemurafenib-resistant BRAF-mutant melanoma, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, have reported (PLoS One 2015;10[10]:e0140310, PMID: 26461489).
Antioxidants May Increase Risk for Melanoma Metastasis
A mouse model indicates that some counterintuitive findings, namely, that the class of “antioxidant” supplements—often touted in the lay press for their chemoprotective quality—can actually increase the number of metastases in melanoma patients (Sci Transl Med 2015;7[308]:308re8, PMID: 26446958). Researchers found that administering N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in mice with melanoma doubled the number of lymph node metastases.
New findings reveal association between colorectal cancer and melanoma drug treatment
Veteran cancer reseacher Prof. Emeritus Alexander Levitzki of Hebrew University of Jerusalem says new findings show link between colorectal cancer and melanoma drug treatment knoqwn as “NT157" in two recently published studies in journal, “Ocogene."