Immunotherapy Combinations Proliferating in Immuno-Oncology

A recent phase III study in advanced melanoma tested a combination of two immunotherapies, nivolumab and ipilimumab, against each drug alone. The duo improved overall survival and progression-free survival, with the median overall survival not reached at 36 months or more, compared with 37.6 months for nivolumab and 19.9 months for ipilimumab. The drugs are checkpoint inhibitors of the programmed death 1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4), respectively, proteins that block immune responses to cancer (N. Engl. J. Med. 2017;377:1345–56; doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1709684).

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