New York [US], September 15 (ANI): Long-term data from a landmark international trial show that about half of patients with metastatic melanoma treated with a combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors live cancer-free for 10 years or more, according to a new report from Weill Cornell Medicine and Dana-Farber Cancer Centre investigators and colleagues. The 10-year follow-up research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, will bring the phase 3 CheckMate 067 trial to a conclusion. The research, which followed 945 patients treated at 137 sites across 21 countries, found that combining nivolumab and ipilimumab, immunotherapies that suppress two separate immune checkpoint proteins, significantly improved outcomes for a condition that had previously been nearly deadly.
Subsequent studies of patient outcomes at three, five, and 6.5 years after the trial began revealed that the effect lasted several years for individuals who responded to the medication. “This was a practice-changing trial,” said first author Dr.
Jedd Wolchok, the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “The median survival for this population is now a little over six years, and people who are free from cancer progression at three years have a high likelihood of remaining alive and disease-free at the 10-year time point.” In 2011, the median survival for .