A NEW treatment for advanced skin cancer could prevent the disease from worsening for a year in some patients, research has suggested.
PHARMACEUTICAL firm Roche has been trialling using a new drug in combination with an existing treatment for the disease.
Melanoma is the fourth most common cancer in Australia with more than 10,000 new cases diagnosed each year. There are about 1200 deaths a year as a result of the disease. Trials using the new drug cobimetinib, which Roche believes could enhance anti-tumour activity, together with the existing treatment vemurafenib, have helped those with previously untreated advanced melanoma – with patients typically not seeing their disease worsen for a year. The experimental treatment can halt the progression of the disease for longer than the current standard treatment, according to Roche. Dr James Larkin, lead investigator for the research, on Saturday presented its findings to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Dr Larkin, a consultant medical oncologist at leading cancer care centre The Royal Marsden Hospital, said: “The results of the coBRIM study reinforce that our continued attention and focus on this disease is providing the clinical advances we need to improve the quality of life and survival for people with melanoma. “Targeting two parts of this cellular pathway, by adding cobimetinib in combination with vemurafenib, sees patients live on average for over a year without their disease progressing – an important advance in melanoma, a significantly life-limiting cancer.”