Two medications have been shown to drastically alter the prognosis for the fatal skin disease melanoma, according to information gained through a decade of follow-up on patients receiving cancer immunotherapy.
A recent study found that patients with advanced melanoma who received the drugs Opdivo and Yervoy from Bristol Myers Squibb had an average survival rate of six years after treatment. Those diagnosed with advanced cancer had a six- to nine-month survival rate prior to the advent of immunotherapy.
The research also found that the average survival time for those who received the combination therapy but ultimately passed away due to melanoma was more than ten years. In the long run, the prospects for people whose illness did not go into complete remission were still considerably better.
“It’s a real opportunity to reinforce hope and to start getting comfortable with the word ‘cure,’” said Jedd Wolchok, a Weill Cornell Medicine oncologist who spearheaded the research. “We saw that there were people dying of reasons other than melanoma when you follow them over 10 years.”
The results are based on the last analysis of the CHECKMATE-067 study, which evaluated the efficacy of the Opdivo-Yervoy combination against that of the individual drugs. Yervoy was the first cancer drug to be authorized as a “checkpoint inhibitor” because it enlists the body’s immune system to combat cancer cells. U.S. clearance was granted to Opdivo, the third immunotherapy of its kind. When given together, they complement each other since Yervoy targets CTLA4 and Opdivo targets PD1.
Yervoy was first approved when it had been evaluated against a therapeutic vaccination still in its preclinical stages. While the vaccination only improved life expectancy by six months, immunotherapy lowered the chance of mortality by 34% and increased life expectancy by an average of ten months.
For the CHECKMATE-067 trial, Bristol Myers divided 945 patients with advanced or inoperable melanoma into three groups that were nearly identical to one another. These groups included individuals who were given the combination of Opdivo and Yervoy, those who were given Opdivo alone, and those who were given Yervoy alone.
When compared to Yervoy alone, the combination lowered the chance of mortality by 47%. On average, patients who received both medications had a 72-month survival rate after therapy, whereas those who received Yervoy alone had a 20-month survival rate.
When all non-melanoma-related fatalities were removed from the equation, 52% of those who received the combo were still living after 10 years. Among patients who had not had illness progression three years after getting the combo therapy, 86% were still alive after a decade. Within the cohorts that received Opdivo alone and Yervoy alone, the corresponding percentages were 85% and 79%.
Wolchok highlighted that these findings should shape the perspectives of physicians and patients on follow-up screening.
