Standard or high dose chemoradiotherapy, with or without the protease inhibitor nelfinavir, in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer: The phase 1/randomised phase 2 SCALOP-2 trial.

Background: The multi-centre two-stage SCALOP-2 trial (ISRCTN50083238) assessed whether dose escalation of consolidative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) or concurrent sensitization using the protease inhibitor nelfinavir improve outcomes in locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) following four cycles of gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel.

Methods: In stage 1, the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of nelfinavir concurrent with standard-dose CRT (50.4 Gy in 28 fractions) was identified from a cohort of 27 patients.

Curing Stage IV Melanoma: Where Have We Been and Where Are We?

Little more than 10 years ago, metastatic melanoma was considered to have one of the poorest cancer outcomes, associated with a median overall survival of 6-8 months. Cytotoxic chemotherapy offered modest response rates of 20%-30%, but no clear survival benefit. Patients were routinely enrolled in clinical trials as their first-line therapy in the search for effective novel therapeutics.

A three-arm randomised phase II study of the MEK inhibitor selumetinib alone or in combination with paclitaxel in metastatic uveal melanoma.

Aims: The MAPK pathway is constitutively activated in uveal melanoma (UM). Selumetinib (AZD6244, ARRY-142886), a MEK inhibitor, has shown limited activity as monotherapy in metastatic UM. Pre-clinical studies support synergistic cytotoxic activity for MEK inhibitors combined with taxanes, and here we sought to assess the clinical efficacy of combining selumetinib and paclitaxel.