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Updated: May 17, 2026

A 3D Organotypic Melanoma Spheroid Skin Model
Published on: May 18, 2018
Inoperable bulky melanoma responds to neoadjuvant therapy with vemurafenib
Niloofar Fadaki1, Servando Cardona-Huerta, Lea Martineau
1Department of Surgery, The Center for Melanoma Research and Treatment in California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, California, USA.
Abstract:
A patient with a bulky inoperable stage IIIC melanoma involving the left axilla and neck from a primary of the left medial elbow received vemurafenib as neo-adjuvant treatment. Based on the molecular analysis, BRAF V600E mutation was present. After 4 months of vemurafinib treatment, the tumours shrank to less than 50% of original clinical size and allowed the surgeons to perform a left modified radical neck dissection and left radical axillary dissection. Pathological analysis of specimen revealed viable metastatic cells only in 1 of 40 nodes resected in the neck and axillary dissection, accounting for over 98% pathological response. Other lymph nodes had a mixture of foamy histiocytic inflammatory reaction fibrosis and islands of necrotic tissues. After recovery from surgery, vemurafenib was resumed and continued for 6 months. He remained disease free 6 months after surgery.
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