Lung cancer driver ALK-fusion found in melanoma

(University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus) A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics finds a genetic change called ALK-fusion in a patient sample of a melanoma subtype called mucosal melanoma. When researchers treated a tumor grown from this sample with the drugs crizotinib and ceritinib -- both FDA approved to treat ALK-positive lung cancer -- the tumor responded dramatically.