Ipilimumab Shows Sustained Efficacy at 7 Years for Stage III Melanoma
Source: OncLive, June 2019
Adjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) elicited a 25% reduction in the risk of recurrence or death compared with placebo for patients with surgically resected high-risk, stage III melanoma, according to an updated analysis of findings from the phase III EORTC 18071 study.1
For the analysis, which was conducted after 6.9 years of median follow-up, the estimated 7-year relapse-free survival rate was 39.2% (95% CI, 34.5%-43.9%) for ipilimumab compared with 30.9% (95% CI, 26.7%-35.2%) with placebo (HR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.88; P <.001). At the 6.9-year analysis, 60.0% (95% CI, 55.0%-64.7%) of patients remained alive in the ipilimumab arm compared with 51.3% (95% CI, 46.5%-55.9%) in the placebo group (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.60-0.89; P = .002).
“These long-term follow-up results are important as we have firmly established that adjuvant therapy with the first immune checkpoint inhibitor, ipilimumab, provides sustained and durable survival benefit,” lead study author Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, general director of Institute Gustav Roussy, said in a statement. “This is encouraging, for what we now may expect to see, is overall survival benefits from more recently conducted trials with the more effective and less toxic anti–PD-1 molecules, such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab.”