A New Dosing Regimen for Nivolumab Plus Ipilimumab in Advanced Melanoma
Source: Cancer Network, March 2019
Among advanced melanoma patients in the CheckMate 511 phase IIIb/IV trial, raising the nivolumab dose to 3 mg/kg and lowering the ipilimumab dose to 1 mg/kg leads to a better safety profile without compromising efficacy. The trial results, recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, may offer patients with advanced melanoma a safer dosing regimen of nivolumab and ipilimumab.
The CheckMate 511 trial included 360 adult patients with treatment-naïve, unresectable stage III or IV melanoma. Patients were randomly assigned treatment with either the standard approved dosing of nivolumab 1 mg/kg plus ipilimumab 3 mg/kg or the alternative dosing of nivolumab 3 mg/kg plus ipilimumab 1 mg/kg once every 3 weeks for four doses. The primary trial endpoint was the comparison of the incidence of treatment-related grade 3 to 5 adverse events (AEs) between groups.