For Melanoma, Pretreatment Influences Vemurafenib Therapy Outcomes

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

According to a new study published in the journal Annals of Oncology, researchers have found that the type of pretreatment, such as chemotherapy or immunotherapy, greatly influences vemurafenib therapy outcomes for patients with BRAF V600 mutated melanoma.

For the mutlicenter, retrospective study, researchers sought to investigate the patterns associated with vemurafenib therapy outcomes and to identify any predictive factors of therapy response. Researchers identified 300 patients with BRAF V600 mutated stage 4 melanoma from 14 institutions. Patients had a median follow-up time of 13 months, a median progression-free survival of 5.1 months, and a median overall survival of 7.6 months. 

Results showed that patients with a serum LDH ≤ULN (P = 0.0000001), an ECOG overall performance status of 0 (P = 0.00089), and BRAF V600E mutated disease (P = 0.016) had the best response under vemurafenib therapy. In addition, previous immunotherapy was associated with a positive impact on survival (HR = 0.57; P = 0.025), while prior chemotherapy (HR = 2.17; P = 0.039) and tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy (HR = 1.86; P = 0.014) were associated with a negative impact.

Furthermore, the researchers found that elevated serum LDH (HR = 1.45; P = 0.012), age >55 years (HR = 0.72; P = 0.019), and gender (HR = 0.70; P = 0.039) are independent predictors of vemurafenib therapy outcomes.