This morning’s news feed delivered some seemingly excellent news for some people with melanoma. At least until now, this form of skin cancer has been considered incurable when metastatic. In the last year, we heard details about the ups and downs of ongoing clinical trials of new drugs to treat the disease.
The Times reports that Roche’s experimental drug prolongs life in patients with metastatic melanoma whose tumors have B-Raf mutations. The new findings, based on a randomized phase III, open-label and industry-sponsored trial, BRIM 3, were first communicated in a press release yesterday. The company indicates that the study met its primary endpoints: Patients taking the experimental pill, RG7204, lived longer, and went longer without disease progression, than those patients in the control arm who received standard chemotherapy (dacarbazine) injections every three weeks.
The new drug – a pill usually given at a dose of 960 milligrams twice daily
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