Australian research has found that an experimental cancer drug could prolong survival for sufferers of advanced melanoma.

Scientists from the Melanoma Institute Australia, University of Sydney and Sydney's Westmead Hospital provided the drug dabrafenib to 46 melanoma patients.

Dabrafenib targets a genetic mutation known as BRAF that is found in half of all melanomas.

In a small group of patients where the melanoma had spread to their brains, dabrafenib shrank the tumours in 90 per cent of cases.

Study co-author Dr Georgina Long from Sydney's Westmead Hospital says it is a big step forward in potential treatment for those with few options.

"We had to push to do that cohort because classically they have such a poor prognosis," she said.

"I mean 50 per cent of them, half of them, die within the first four months of diagnosis and so they've been excluded from clinical trials.

"We had to push to create this small cohort to see if we could see activity of this drug in the melanoma that had spread to the brain."

Forty-year-old Matt Hutchinson was diagnosed with melanoma in December and was one of 10 people who took part in the trial.

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His brain tumour and those of eight others in the study shrunk within the first six weeks of taking dabrafenib.

Mr Hutchinson says his tumour was scanned two weeks ago and doctors reclassified it as static.

He says the drug has helped him see the birth of his son.

The results of the trial are due to be published in The Lancet medical journal on Saturday.

Experts not involved in the trial also said the drug showed promise.

In a commentary piece in The Lancet, US cancer researchers Geoffrey Gibney and Vernon Sondak described the results as "impressive" and "encouraging".

Melanoma is diagnosed in nearly 160,000 people worldwide each year, and Australia has the highest incidence in the world.

ABC/Reuters