Abraxan and Avastin for metastatic melanoma
Metastatic melanoma responds poorly to chemotherapy with the main drugs being temozolomide or dacarbazine after failure of immunotherapy or vaccination. Recently Yervoy was approved. Zelboraf is approved for thos with teh BRAF mutations. Abraxane has also been reported to have single agent activity. This response rate is higher than observed previously with paclitaxel or docetaxel suggesting that this formulation of paclitaxel may be more active than the conventional form. A study from Spain has also found the combination of Taxol and Avastin to have clinical benefit in over half of the patients with metastatic melanoma.
Abraxane and Avastin is under study in a phase II trial at Northern California Melanoma Center. an open-label, single arm multicenter Phase II study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination of Abraxane and Avastin as first-line therapy for patients with unresectable metastatic malignant melanoma. Early experience suggests that nab-paclitaxel and bevacizumab is an effective and well-tolerated regimen as first-line therapy in patients with metastatic melanoma.
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