A new treatment for advanced melanoma facilitates rapid shrinking of tumors according to a new study.

The phase I of the extension trial examines patients with a mutation of the BRAF gene that causes cancer, associated with half of the melanoma cases and 5 percent of colorectal cancers.

Tumors were shrunk in 17 out of the 27 patients who were given the new pill known as PLX4032. The tumors completely vanished in two patients.

Paul Chapman, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York says that these are never-before results.

Overall, 70 percent patients who were given the pill showed tumor shrinking with a particular cancer-related mutation.

The new pill was also well tolerated and no patients were dropping off due to the side-effects.

Melanoma is the deadliest kind of skin cancer and every year 160,000 new cases are diagnosed. It can only be treated when detected at an early stage and once it has spread it can cause death within a year.

An estimated 68,720 new cases will be there this year and 8,650 deaths from the disease in the U. S. according to the American Cancer Society.

The new drug stops the activity of gene, BRAF, which is involved in 50-60 percent of melanomas.