China News Service, Guangzhou, March 25th (Cai Minjie and Zuo Jiaolei) Lung cancer is one of the most common and most dangerous types of cancer in the world.
In recent years, targeted therapy has opened a new chapter in the precise treatment of lung cancer.
Dabrafenib combined with trametinib for the treatment of BRAF-mutated lung cancer was recently approved in China.
Professor Zhang Li, director of the Department of Oncology at Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center and chief expert on lung cancer, said that studies have shown that the above treatments have good curative effect on patients with BRAF V600-mutated non-small cell lung cancer, whether as first-line treatment or later-line treatment.
Lung cancer is the malignant tumor with the highest morbidity and mortality in China, and the overall five-year survival rate of patients is less than 15%.
According to different histopathological characteristics, it can be divided into non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer.
Among them, non-small cell lung cancer accounts for about 85% of lung cancers.
In non-small cell lung cancer, the BRAF gene mutation rate is 1.5% to 3.5%; BRAF V600 accounts for about 50% of all BRAF mutations, of which the most common type is V600E mutation.
Zhang Li said that the BRAF V600 mutation is a rare driver gene for advanced non-small cell lung cancer, and there is a lack of effective treatment options in the past, and the prognosis of patients is poor.
The current clinical benefits of chemotherapy and immunotherapy are not ideal.
Targeted drugs can specifically bind to some definite carcinogenic sites, causing specific death of tumor cells without damaging surrounding normal tissue cells, so the systemic side effects are small and the effect is precise.
The researchers found that the BRAF driver gene is a key molecule in the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway, and BRAF mutation can lead to the continuous activation of the downstream cell signal transduction pathway of mitogen-activated protein kinase, which promotes cell growth, proliferation, and mediates tumorigenesis.
Dabrafenib mesylate and trametinib tablets, a dual-targeted combination therapy for the treatment of BRAF V600 mutation-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, were recently approved by the State Drug Administration for new indications.
This is not only the third approved indication of the combination therapy, but also the first dual-targeted combination therapy drug approved in China for BRAF V600 mutation-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
According to reports, the dual-target combination of dabrafenib and trametinib adopts an innovative mechanism of comprehensively inhibiting the upstream and downstream pathways of mitogen-activated protein kinase. The combination of the two can simultaneously inhibit the two targets of BRAF and MEK, so that the lesions can be ease.
It is understood that previously, dabrafenib combined with trametinib has shown significant efficacy in the adjuvant treatment of advanced melanoma and melanoma, and this approval adds another effective treatment for BRAF-mutant lung cancer. It opens a new direction for targeted therapy in adjuvant therapy of patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
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