BRAF Mutation in Colorectal and Melanoma Cancer

 Writer:Dr Jassem Alazawi

.College of Medicine at Shaqra, SA

The recent article published in Biomarkers in Cancer 2015 has updated the significance of BRAF mutation in colorectal cancer. This type of disease has attracted large number of scientist and clinicians to understand the characteristics of mutation in the B-Raf proto-oncogene serine/threonine kinase (BRAF) gene resulting in a valine-to-glutamate change at the residue 600. There are about 10% colorectal patients suffer from this mutation, but more than 60% of melanoma patients. Therefore, chemotherapeutic strategy for inhibiting BRAF was developed to improve patient survival. Among of these inhibitors are vemurafenib, dabrafenib and encorafenib. However, most patients with coloreactal cancer developed resistance to these inhibitors, while melanoma patients benefit from the combination of different inhibitors. These results suggest different resistance mechanisms between the two cancer types.

:Reference

.Barras. BRAF Mutation in Colorectal Cancer: An Update. Biomarkers in Cancer 2015:7(S1) 9–12 doi:10.4137/BIC.S25248