New Drug Helps Shrink Tumors in Rare Eye Cancer

Scientists believe that the help of a new drug could shrink tumors in a very rare type of cancer. The experimental drug, selumetinib, is one of the first to demonstrate significant clinical benefit for patients with metatastic uveal melanoma, according to new Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research presented on Saturday at the 49^th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. (ASCO)

According to a press release, these findings could historically change what was once considered an "untreatable disease."

The MD Anderson Cancer Center sites uveal melanoma as a rare type of eye cancer. However, it is the most common eye cancer in adults and accounts for approximately 5 percent of melanoma cases. The uvea is behind the sclera, otherwise known as the white of the eye, and the cornea, or the window at the front of the eye.

Common symptoms typically experienced with this type of health issue can be a dark spot on the iris, a change in the shape of the pupil, lured vision or other change in vision, Glaucoma, eye pain or eye redness.

According to a press release, researchers found that the progression-survival (PFS) in patients receiving selumetinib was nearly 16 weeks and 50 percent of these patients experienced tumor shrinkage, with 15 percent achieving major shrinkage. Patients receiving temozolomide, the current standard chemotherapy, had seven weeks of PFS and no tumor shrinkage. Selumetinib also lengthened overall survival to 10.8 months versus 9.4 months with temozolomide, and side effects were manageable.

"This is the first study to show that a systemic therapy provides significant clinical benefit in a randomized fashion to advanced uveal melanoma patients, who have very limited treatment options," said Richard D. Carvajal, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and lead author on the study, according to a press release. "This clinical benefit has never been demonstrated with other conventional or investigational agents, which is all we have been able to offer patients for decades."

Researchers tested selumetinib as it blocks the MEK protein, a key component of the tumor-driving MAPK pathway, which can be responsible for 85 percent of uveal melanoma mutations seen in patients. The study notes that 84 percent of the patients in the trial had one of the mutations in the Gnag or Gna11 genes.

Carvajal and his colleagues looked at a group of 98 randomized patients with metastatic uveal melanoma and administered selumetinib to 47, of which 81 percent had a Gnaq or Gna11 mutation. Of the 49 patients who received temozolomide, 86 percent had a mutation, according to a press release.

The study notes that two of the patients were not treated. The results showed a trend towards improved survival of selumetinib, which was generally tolerable on certain doses of medication.