Melanoma drug success

Australian clinical trials have found a drug to be effective against melanoma. An estimated 1,200 Australians die every year from the cancer.

The drug turns off the proteins that drive cancer cell growth, significantly reducing the size of the tumours. In one case the tumours were completely erased according to a report in ABC News.

“The key findings from this research are the ability of designing a drug to turn off proteins that drive growth of cancer cells, and this is done in a very rational, designed way,” said Associate Professor Grant MacArthur, head of the therapeutics program at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

The trial is promising and researchers hope it will one day replace chemotherapy.
The research was published in the journal, Nature.

“As a surgeon dealing with melanoma for over 20 years, we’ve been able to look after melanoma in its early stages by excising or by surgical excision, but the difficulty becomes the patients who get recurrent widespread disease,” said News South Wales surgeon, Associate Professor Austin Curtin. He had two of his patients participate in the trial.

“One young patient, only 23 with widespread metastatic disease, has had within weeks of starting the medication complete resolution of the secondaries in her bones, and the secondaries in the brain have also disappeared completely,” he said in the report.

“It’s groundbreaking stuff. It’s not yet the cure for melanoma, but it is showing us there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Previously we couldn’t even see the end of the tunnel.”