New Melanoma Drug PLX 4032

This week’s New York Times reported the most exciting news to date on the drug treatment of metastatic melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer of all. Metastatic melanoma means the melanoma has spread from the skin to other organs in your body. The drug is called “PLX 4032” and it has that funny name because it’s still experimental. Obviously, the best treatment here is to not get melanoma and to not get skin cancer. To date, over 20 different episodes of DermTV have offered advice on how to protect your skin and how to prevent you from getting skin cancer. When melanoma occurs in the skin and it’s detected early, it’s 100% curable. If it’s not detected early and it spreads to other organs, it’s often fatal. Radiation doesn’t help it, and chemotherapy and immunotherapy usually just don’t work. This news that was reported by this study is the most encouraging in the treatment of melanoma because, when this drug was used by many patients with metastatic melanoma, PLX 4032, it resulted in tumors shrinking in many different parts of their body and a decrease in their symptoms of pain. Obviously, this is very exciting but it’s very early, it’s still experimental, it’s not the end of the story, but in my lifetime, to date, this is the most encouraging news on the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Your take-away is, while there is a new drug which is very encouraging for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, you want to make sure that it doesn’t become relevant to your life and, to prevent that, make sure you use your sunscreen every day and see your dermatologist for a screening examination for the early detection of skin cancer and early treatment at least once a year because the best way to treat these things is to detect them early when they’re 100% curable.