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Re: Limb Amputation- acral melanoma
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Re: Limb Amputation- acral melanoma

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Limb Amputation- acral melanoma › Re: Limb Amputation- acral melanoma

    • August 2, 2010 at 7:29 pm
    Tim–MRF
    Guest

      The c-kit thing was odd, but it speaks to the future of cancer treatment.  Glevec was tested in leukemia and the mechanism for action was to block c-kit.  Someone in melanoma realized that a lot of acral and mucosal melanomas have that mutation too, so it might work there.  And it does. 

      I think increasingly, drugs will be developed with a  specific mechanism of action, and will be used across many tumor types so long as they involve that mechanism.

      There is some early evidence of a biomarker for IL-2 response.  A small paper was published a year ago that people with VEGF levels above 130 pg/ml did not respond to IL-2.  Might be worth having his VEGF levels tested (pronouced vef – F) before deciding on IL-2.  Howard Kaufman, from Rush in Chicago, did that study.  He does a lot of IL-2.

      Tim

       

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