Treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma with vemurafenib during pregnancy.

Introduction The prognosis of stage IV malignant melanoma (MM) has for decades remained poor with median survival of 6 to 9 months. Half of MM tumors carry an activating mutation of the proto-oncogene, B-RAF. The BRAF-inhibitor vemurafenib increases overall and progression-free survival compared with treatment with the chemotherapeutic agent dacarbazine in MM patients with advanced disease. Vemurafenib is since August 2011 approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and since January 2012 by the European Medical Agency. Treatment strategies in pregnant patients suffering from cancer require multidisciplinary approaches. To our knowledge, this is the first described case of therapy with the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib during pregnancy. MM is a common disease, its incidence grows rapidly and vemurafenib is becoming an established treatment. In addition, MM occurs frequently in younger people and the B-RAF mutation is more common in younger patients. These factors mean that similar cases are highly likely to occur in the future making this report of particular value.