Clinical outcomes of BRAF plus MEK inhibition in melanoma: A meta‐analysis and systematic review

BACKGROUND: Melanoma is a potentially fatal malignancy with poor prognosis. Several recent studies have demonstrated that combination therapy of BRAF and MEK inhibition achieved better curative effect and appeared less toxic effects. We conducted a meta‐analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety between BRAF inhibition plus MEK inhibition combination therapy and BRAF inhibition monotherapy in melanoma patients. METHODS: We performed the search in PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library from January 2010 to January 2019. Inclusion and exclusion of studies, assessment of quality, outcome measures, data extraction, and synthesis were independently accomplished by two reviewers. Revman 5.3 software was used for the meta‐analysis. RESULTS: Totally, seven randomized controlled trials involving 3146 patients met our inclusion criteria. Comparing the results of combination therapy and monotherapy, combination therapy significantly improved OS (RR = 1.13; 95% CI, 1.08, 1.19; P < 0.00001), ORR (RR = 1.36; 95% CI, 1.28, 1.45; P < 0.00001), PFS (RR = 0.57; 95% CI, 0.52, 0.63; P < 0.00001) and reduced deaths (RR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.69, 0.88; P < 0.0001). Skin‐related adverse events such as hyperkeratosis, cutaneous squamous‐cell carcinoma were less compared with monotherapy. However, gastrointestinal events like nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting were at a higher frequency. CONCLUSION: Doublet BRAF and MEK inhibition achieved better survival outcomes over single‐agent BRAF inhibition and occurred less skin‐related events, but gastrointestinal events were more in combination therapy.