cetuximab

European researchers have found that metastatic colorectal cancer patients with a mutation in the BRAF gene do not respond to anti-EGFR therapy with cetuximab and panitumumab.

The finding could help doctors better identify which patients are likely to benefit from such treatment, which is commonly used as last-effort therapy but only works in a fraction of patients.

Clinicians have been perplexed by the fact that some patients given the drug cetuximab -- an immune-based therapy commonly used to treat persons diagnosed with head and neck cancer, or colon cancer -- have a severe adverse reaction to the drug.

Researchers have now discovered that pre-existing antibodies cause the severe reaction to the drug. This discovery in turn has enabled them to explain the unusual geographic pattern of this reaction seen among individuals in the US.