Seven years after the diagnosis of melanoma with silent brain metastases, one of the most difficult cancers to treat, 43% of patients are alive thanks to the use of immunotherapy with the molecules ipilimumab and nivolumab in combination. This is demonstrated by the update of the Nibit Foundation's Nibit-M2 trial. A result that experts call "extraordinary", compared to 10% for standard therapies. The data are presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) congress in Madrid.
Metastatic melanoma was the first cancer to benefit from the advent of immunotherapy. If in the past the average survival at 5 years from diagnosis was 5% with chemotherapy alone, today thanks to the combination of several immunotherapy drugs the percentage more than 7 years after diagnosis is close to 50%. "About 40% of people with metastatic melanoma," explains oncologist Anna Maria Di Giacomo, "develop metastases at the level of the central nervous system, a characteristic that is associated with a reduced life expectancy. In these patients, immunotherapy, due to its mechanism of action, has never been considered a valid strategy to target the metastasized brain tumor." Despite the great success of immunotherapy, therefore, the treatment of silent brain metastases has remained one of the main challenges in melanoma patients for years. The phase III clinical trial of Nibit-M2 is the first in the world for this type of patient and now demonstrates the usefulness of combination immunotherapy on silent and previously untreated brain metastases.
"The results presented at Esmo only confirm our initial intuition that melanoma can be treated with immunotherapy even when it metastasizes to the brain, which has always been considered an inaccessible place for immunotherapy treatment. An intuition capable of changing current clinical practice and the lives of patients," says Michele Maio, director of the Immuno-Oncology Center of the S. Maria alle Scotte Hospital in Siena and president of the Nibit Foundation.
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