In April 2015, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that a 49-year-old woman’s melanoma tumor disappeared after one round of a new two-drug treatment, disappearing so quickly that it left a cavity in its place. The woman was part of a larger study that sought to test the effectiveness of a combination of two melanoma drugs that previously had not been tried together: Nivolumab and Ipilimumab.
The combination of drugs attempts to treat melanoma through a process called immunotherapy, which uses the patient’s immune system to fight diseases. This can be accomplished in one of two ways, either by stimulating the immune system to attack the disease, or by bolstering the immune system with proteins or cells necessary to fight off disease. Melanoma is a severe type of skin cancer that originates in the skin’s melanocytes, the skin cells that are responsible for skin color. Too much exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun can cause irreversible damage leading to the formation of cancerous tumors that can spread to other parts of the body.
Image Source: Stone | Willie B. Thomas
Over 140 people with moderate to advanced melanoma who had previously not received treatment were split into randomly assigned groups and either given a combination of Nivolumab and Ipilimumab, or Ipilimumab plus a placebo drug that has no effect. Tumor growth was studied 12 weeks after the first treatment and then every six weeks for the remainder of a year. Results showed that the two-drug combination was significantly more effective in reducing tumor size (61% patients’ tumors shrink) than one drug alone (11% patients tumors shrink). The two drug combination is a PD-1 protein inhibitor, which prevents the deactivation of immune system and allows immune cells to attack tumor cells.
The drug combination did come with some mild to severe side effects, the most common being colitis (inflammation of the colon) and diarrhea. And while a single treatment currently costs over $10,000, it is estimated that the cost will soon decrease with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
While this study was conducted specifically on melanoma patients, other similar studies with PD-1 inhibiting drugs are being conducted on other types of cancers with positive results (2015 study on lung cancer), providing hope that effective treatments for cancer are within our reach.
Feature Image Source: Immunotherapy by Patient Power
