Combination immunotherapy shows no additional benefit for most advanced cancers, finds meta-analysis

A mixture immunotherapy therapy of nivolumab plus ipilimumab was related to no enchancment in survival for superior cancers apart from melanoma, when in comparison with nivolumab alone, in keeping with a latest Northwestern Drugs meta-analysis revealed in JAMA Oncology.

“This meta-analysis revealed that in superior cancers apart from melanoma, the addition of ipilimumab to standard-dose nivolumab was not related to a clinically significant enchancment in total survival or progression-free survival, whereas considerably growing high-grade toxicities.

“Oncologists will hopefully think about these knowledge rigorously, together with the precise illness context, earlier than prescribing or recommending addition of ipilimumab to standard-dose nivolumab in a non-melanoma superior most cancers,” mentioned Niraj Shenoy, MD, Ph.D., affiliate professor of Drugs within the Division of Hematology and Oncology and of Pathology and senior writer of the research.

Within the present evaluation, investigators examined knowledge from eight clinical trials that lined greater than 1,700 sufferers with totally different superior cancers, together with non–small cell lung most cancers, small cell lung cancersquamous cell lung most cancers, pleural mesothelioma, urothelial carcinoma, esophagogastric carcinoma, sarcoma and glioblastoma multiforme.

General, the evaluation revealed that therapy with nivolumab plus ipilimumab was not related to enchancment in total or progression-free survival in comparison with nivolumab alone. The mix therapy was additionally related to considerably greater toxicity in comparison with the monotherapy.

The findings recommend that nivolumab plus ipilimumab could also be pointless for sufferers with advanced cancers apart from melanoma, and that nivolumab monotherapy might present comparable medical outcomes with diminished toxicity, in keeping with the authors.

“For cancers by which nivolumab and ipilimumab mixture remedy has been authorised with out comparability with nivolumab monotherapy, non-inferiority trials needs to be strongly thought-about,” Shenoy mentioned. “The meta-analysis serves as a sobering reminder to the oncology analysis group in addition to regulatory our bodies to chorus from assuming combinatorial superiority throughout cancers based mostly on knowledge in a single most cancers.”