THURSDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- The cancer drug Gleevec
has forced metastatic melanoma into remission for the first time,
report researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in
Boston.
The case involves a 79-year-old woman with melanoma tumors in
several parts of her abdomen. The tumor cells carried an
abnormality in a gene called KIT, so the patient was enrolled in a
clinical trail of the drug imatinib (Gleevec), which targets the
KIT gene.
Four weeks after the woman started therapy, there was dramatic
reduction in tumor size and metabolism. Two of the tumor masses had
vanished, and several others were much smaller. After four months,
the tumors were still in check and, nine months later, the woman
was still taking the drug and her condition remained stable.
The report was published in the April 20 issue of the
Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"This is the first proof of principle that we can find an
Achilles' heel in melanoma and by targeting that gene with a drug,
cause the [tumor cells] to die. It is especially exciting because
there haven't been any effective treatments for melanoma patients
with metastatic disease," study author Dr. Stephen Hodi said in a
prepared statement.
He said this case may involve just one patient, but should
inspire new hope in the fight against melanoma. Because previous
research failed to identify any genetic weak point that could be
targeted to stop melanoma cell growth, some researchers believed
that no such Achilles' heel existed for melanoma cells. The
discovery of this one suggests there may be others.
"Dramatic remissions in metastatic melanoma are something that,
as physicians, we've rarely seen. Confirming these results will
require enrolling additional patients in clinical trials --
something we're actively working to accomplish," Hodi said.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about
melanoma.
