NEW ORLEANS — More than a third of advanced-melanoma patients who received one of the new immunotherapy drugs in an early trial are alive five years after starting treatment – double the survival rate typical of the disease, according to a new study.
The data, released Sunday at a cancer conference, showed that 34 percent of patients with metastatic melanoma who received Opdivo, an immunotherapy drug also known as nivolumab, have survived. The five-year survival rate for patients with advanced melanoma who got other treatments was 16.6 percent between 2005 and 2011, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers said the study is important because it represents the first long-term follow-up of survival data from a trial using an “anti-PD-1” immunotherapy drug. That approach targets the PD-1 protein, which is involved in a complex process that prevents the immune system’s T-cells from attacking cancer.
“It is very encouraging that a subset of melanoma patients is experiencing a long-term survival benefit,” said F. Stephen Hodi, director of the Melanoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who led the study.
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