Melanoma drugs ‘can benefit lung cancer patients’

Some lung cancer patients can benefit from receiving drugs more commonly used to treat melanoma. 

This is according to the results of a new study that were presented at the European Lung Cancer Conference in Geneva. 

Scientists discovered that drugs such as vemurafenib, dabrafenib and sorafenib may be effective in treating lung cancer patients with specific mutations in the BRAF gene.

These mutations are common among melanoma patients and are found in around two percent of lung cancer cases. 

Some 35 lung cancer patients who had been identified as carrying BRAF mutations were treated with melanoma drugs and the scientists recorded an overall response rate of 53 percent. 

Dr Oliver Gautschi, a medical oncologist from Lucern Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland, commented: "The bottom line is that clinicians should be sure to test patients for so-called 'rare' driver mutations in lung cancer, because individual patients may derive substantial benefit from targeted therapy."