Researchers from Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have shown that the combination of Paclitaxel and Carboplatin appears to be effective for metastatic melanoma when traditional treatments have failed.

The study is published in the journal Cancer.

" Melanoma is unfortunately one of the few cancers that has become more common over the last few decades, and when it becomes metastatic, there are very few treatment options," says Ravi Rao, Mayo Clinic oncologist and lead investigator of the study. " This is a good step towards better treating this cancer. “Nearly half of the patients that received Paclitaxel and Carboplatin experienced a clinical benefit of stable disease ( 19 percent ) or tumor size reduction ( 26 percent ).

The National Cancer Institute reports a 2.4 percent increase in the incidence of melanoma between 1992 and 2002. New cases are diagnosed in about 60,000 people each year in the United States, and almost 8,000 die because of metastasized melanoma. Because they know that most therapies provide palliative as opposed to curative options, researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center consider developing more effective curative treatment options to be a priority.

Rao and his co-investigators examined the records of 31 metastatic melanoma patients at Mayo Clinic who were treated with the Paclitaxel and Carboplatin combination between March 2003 and January 2005.
These patients had previously received (and failed) an average of two treatments, including vaccine/immunotherapy. Interestingly, the researchers found that this combination benefited even those patients in whom Temozolomide ( currently the most commonly used chemotherapy drug for melanoma ) failed.

Because the data was collected from the records of patients treated previously and was not part of a set treatment regimen, the schedule and dosage of Paclitaxel and Carboplatin varied. However, the researchers believe that using the drugs weekly ( compared to once every three weeks ) makes the combination more tolerable, and the researchers prefer that option.

Source: Mayo Clinic, 2006


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