Melanoma is a serious type of skin cancer that occurs when pigment-producing cells become cancerous. Previous studies have suggested that nivolumab provides longer progression-free and overall survival than ipilimumab alone in patients with advanced melanoma. This study aims to compare five-year survival in advanced melanoma patients with nivolumab plus ipilimumab or nivolumab alone.
This is a randomized study conducted on patients previously untreated with advanced melanoma. The participants were randomly divided into three groups. The first group received nivolumab (1 mg per 1 kg body weight) and ipilimumab (3 mg per kg BW), followed by nivolumab (3 mg per kg BW). The second group received nivolumab (3 mg per kg BW) plus an ipilimumab-matched placebo. The third group received ipilimumab (3 mg per kg BW) plus a nivolumab-matched placebo. The primary outcomes were overall survival and progression-free survival.
At 60 months of follow-up, the median overall survival was 60.0 months in the nivolumab-plus-ipilimumab group, 36.9 months in the nivolumab group, and 19.9 months in the ipilimumab group. The overall survival at five years in the three groups was 52%, 44%, and 26%, respectively.
The research concluded that among patients with advanced melanoma, nivolumab-plus-ipilimumab treatment resulted in a greater rate of overall and progression-free survival in five years than other treatments in the study.
Ref: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1910836
