A case report of a patient with metastatic ocular melanoma who experienced a response to treatment with the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib

Abstract

Background: Conjunctival malignant melanoma (CMM) is a rare malignancy and in the advanced setting there is no effective treatment. In contrast, half of cutaneous melanomas have BRAF mutations and treatment with BRAF inhibitors is established for patients with disseminated disease. The most common form of ocular melanoma, uveal melanoma, lacks these mutations, however, their presence has been reported for CMM. Case presentation: We used the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib to treat a 53 year-old female suffering from a BRAFV600E mutated metastatic CMM. The patient benefited from the treatment, a response was evident within a week and she experienced a progression free survival of four months. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first described case of response to vemurafenib treatment in a patient with ocular melanoma.