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30.06.2016 | Onkologie | Online-Artikel

Immunotherapy: updates on clinical trials and other insights


Besides targeted drugs for driver mutations, immunotherapies represent one of the two recent major advancements of the past decade for the treatment of metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Nivolumab and ipilimumab enhance T-cell antitumour activity through distinct and complementary mechanisms. The combination of these two agents has already been approved in the US and EU for metastatic melanoma. In NSCLC, nivolumab monotherapy is approved as a second-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic disease, while first-line standard treatment still consists of platinum-doublet chemotherapy. Progress towards improved first-line treatment options has plateaued over the last decade, and the need for improvement in this clinical setting is critical.