Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator ‘03-‘08) of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues, reported the success of a new combination therapy for advanced metastatic melanoma. The therapy combines two drugs (Yervoy and nivolumab) to block “checkpoint” pathways, thus stimulating T cells in the immune system to attack cancers. In a Phase I clinical trial, the combination was demonstrated to be more effective than either drug administered alone. 65% of patients in the study showed halted disease progression, and 40% experienced tumor reduction. The researchers hope that this therapy might be effective for patients with other advanced cancers, like non-small cell lung cancer and renal cancer. The results were reported at the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
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