Vemurafenib really does work on melanoma brain mets for BRAF V600E patients!!!

The latest and greatest is coming in from ASCO 2014 (the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology) so here we go!!!!

Treatment patterns and outcomes in BRAF V600E mutant melanoma patients with brain metastases receiving vemurafenib in the real-world setting.

2014 ASCO abstract 
By:  Gibney, Marynchenko, Galebach, et al....with info from Moffit, Boston, Montreal, and San Fran

Synopsis:
Metastatic melanoma patients with brain mets have a poor prognosis and median survival of less than 6 months.  Clinical data for 283 BRAF V600E melanoma patients with active brain mets treated with vem after 8/2011 (and their diagnosis of brain mets) were analyzed.  Prior to vem, 109 had received local treatment and 23 had received systemic treatment.  Median vem treatment duration among patients who stopped vem was 5 months. 21 patients required a dose reduction.  Reasons for discontinuation of vem = systemic disease progression (42.9%), intracranial progression (18.1%), death (16.4%), and patient decision (5.6%).  136/283 patients (48.1%) were reported to achieve overall intracranial response.  Survival at 6 months was 85.7%.  Patients with >/= 5 brain mets, progressive extracranial mets, and >/= 2 sites of extracranial mets were found to be significant prognostic factors for death.
CONCLUSION:  In the real world setting, the use of vem treatment is associated with clinical benefit in BRAF V600E melanoma patients with active brain mets.

For a break down on BRAF and what V600E means you can look at:
The low down on BRAF!

More intel to come.  C