Dr. Wolchok on the Safety Profile in CheckMate-067 in Melanoma

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, chief, Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service, Department of Medicine and Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the safety profile in the CheckMate-067 trial, which examined nivolumab (Opdivo) combined with ipilimumab (Yervoy) in treatment-naïve patients with advanced melanoma.

It is important to emphasize to patients that stopping treatment is not necessarily bad, says Wolchok. A "more is better" mindset is not necessarily the case when it comes to immunotherapy.

The data from CheckMate-067 showed that patients who had to stop treatment due to toxicity from the combination therapy actually achieved a significantly higher response rate of 68%. Thus, it is not clear that stopping treatment is bad for patients, and it may in fact be an indicator of better outcomes, explains Wolchok.