Dr. Chapman Describes the Vemurafenib Clinical Trial

Paul Chapman, MD from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center describes the vemurafenib clinical trial.

Dr. Chapman says the vemurafenib trial was a phase III randomized trial for patients with melanoma who had never had prior therapy whose tumors had a mutation in the BRAF gene. These patients were randomized to either receive the experimental drug, vemurafenib, or a standard chemotherapy. Patients were randomized 1:1 and initially no crossover was allowed. The results were that the patients on the vemurafenib arm showed a decreased risk of death of 63%, and as a result the early analysis that showed that decrease led to allowing the patients on the standard chemotherapy drug to crossover to the experimental arm.