Dual Immunotherapy for Treatment of Mesothelioma Patients

Combination of two immunotherapy drugs nivolumab and ipilumumab offers better survival than chemotherapy for patients with malignant mesothelioma. This combination has shown clinical benefit in 6 cancers.

Combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab improved overall survival of patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma compared to platinum-based chemotherapy, according to a study. //

The research is presented at the International //Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Virtual Presidential Symposium.The study is presented by Paul Baas, M.D., from The Netherlands Cancer Institute and The University of Leiden, in Amsterdam.

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‘Dual immunotherapy for malignant mesothelioma using a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab drugs improved the overall survival rate of patients. This combination of drug have been effective in six different tumor types. ’
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Nivolumab is an immunotherapy that works as a checkpoint inhibitor, blocking a signal that prevents activation of T cells from attacking the cancer.

Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody that works to activate the immune system by targeting CTLA-4, a protein receptor that downregulates the immune system.

When administered in combination, this dual immunotherapy has shown clinical benefit in 6 different tumor types, including mesothelioma.

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Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a highly aggressive cancer with a five-year survival rate of less than 10 percent. Current standard of care treatment is chemotherapy with few treatment advances in the last 15 years.

In this large phase III study, Dr. Baas and the global study investigators randomly assigned more than 600 patients: 303 to the nivolumab + ipilimumab arm and 302 to the chemotherapy arm.

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The study had a minimal follow up of close to two years. Two-year overall survival rates were 40.8% for the patients in the experimental treatment arm vs 27.0% in chemotherapy arm.

Of the 30.3% of patients in the study-combination group who experienced grade 3-4 adverse events, 15% discontinued therapy compared with 7.4% of the 32.0% of patients in chemotherapy group.

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"CheckMate 743 met its primary endpoint of statistically improved OS with nivolumab + ipilimumab vs standard of care chemotherapy in first-line treatment of patients with mesothelioma," said Dr. Baas. "These clinically meaningful data represent the first positive phase 3 trial of immunotherapy in first-line MPM and should be considered as a new standard of care."

Source-Eurekalert