Metastatic melanoma has less frequency, but considered as the most dreaded cancer. The combination of nivolumab & ipilimumab is proving their mettle in treating metastatic melanoma. The patients when administered with the combination of nivolumab & ipilimumab have shown improved median progression free survival, objective response rate and overall survival rate compared with nivolumab and ipilimumab monotherapy. The combination shrinks the tumor cells by attacking different checkpoints viz. CTLA-4 and PD-L1, respectively. The combination treatment reveals reduced disease progression and suggests nivolumab's non-cross resistant nature. The median progression free survival in "nivolumab plus ipilimumab" group has shown an increase of 66.7% and 296.6% in comparison to nivolumab and ipilimumab monotherapy. The other parameter viz. objective response rate improvement is equivalent to almost 14% and 38.6% when compared to nivolumab and ipilimumab monotherapy, respectively.
Keywords: Checkpoint inhibitors; median progression free survival; metastasize; metastatic melanoma; nivolumab.