Association of concomitant use of acid reducing agents in full-dose vemurafenib users with risk of progression in BRAF V600 mutation-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma patients: A retrospective cohort study.

Abstract

9540 Background: Vemurafenib is used for the treatment of adult patients with BRAF V600 mutation-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The approved fixed vemurafenib dose of 960 mg twice daily may result in overexposure. Concomitant use of acid reducing agents (ARAs) may result in underexposure. Both situations are likely to affect treatment outcome. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the association between the use of vemurafenib (full-dose versus reduced dose) and/or concomitant ARA use (yes versus no) and the risk of disease progression. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from the electronic health record software of the Radboudumc pharmacy and medical records of the Radboudumc (March 17th 2012 to March 17th 2016). Patients (N = 112) using vemurafenib as first line treatment for melanoma were included. Multivariable cox regression estimated adjusted hazard ratios (HRa) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of progression in vemurafenib users (full-dose N = 67 versus reduced dose N = 45) and/or concomitant ARA users (N = 38). Adjustments were made for age and sex. Results: The mean follow-up time was 3.5 months and 41 patients (36.6%) developed progression on first line vemurafenib. Co-treatment of ARAs in patients using full-dose vemurafenib was associated with a 4.6-fold increased risk of progression (HRa 4.56; 95% CI 1.51-13.75) as compared to full-dose vemurafenib users not co-treated with ARAs. No increased risk was found for users of vemurafenib in a reduced dose, regardless of concomitant ARA use. Conclusions: Concomitant use of ARAs in full-dose vemurafenib users was associated with an increased risk of progression. Physicians should be cautious to prescribe ARAs to patients tolerating full-dose vemurafenib. The presence of considerable confounding by disease severity, the small number of events and the hypothesis generating character of this study emphasize the need to prospective validate these results.