I had to read the abstract to understand what they were doing, but this was targeted at patients who had not previously had ipi treatment, just nivo.
My wife is a stage 4 melanoma survivor (with brain mets). She was diagnosed stage 4 when they found two melanoma brain tumors in 2017 (she had had a melanoma removed from her leg 6 months prior and he been given an all clear at that time).
She was treated with ipi + nivo for 4 infusions and then switched to nivo alone for two years. The ipi frequently has serious side effects so they limit it to 4 or fewer treatments but just that amount has a huge benefit.
Immunotherapies have been a game changer for melanoma, as chemotherapy and most other treatments have never worked very well. If she had been diagnosed 5 years earlier she likely wouldn’t have survived it, now she’s cancer-free.
I have had melanoma. Treated for 2 years with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) + metformin (immunotherapy).
I had 2 small lesions on my liver plus a lymph node tumor which was removed.
My last treatment was in January this year. In February, a head-to-toe PET scan came out negative.
The treatment had NO negative side effects for me. A few years ago, this melanoma would have killed me.
Jimmy Carter had the same treatment - his melanoma was worse, it had traveled to his brain. Thank God mine didn’t. He is now 96 years old.
Immunotherapy worked for me. I hope advances in such treatments can be found for other forms of cancer.