Melanoma, the skin cancer with the worst prognosis, can be beaten in a third of cases by dual immunotherapy. This is confirmed by the 10-year follow-up of several hundred patients conducted by an international collaboration of oncologists and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Inject antibodies every 15 days
Immunotherapy consists of blocking, using specific antibodies, the inactivation by cancer cells of immune cells capable of killing them, cytotoxic T lymphocytes.
The use of two antibody binding to two surface proteins of lymphocytes, PD-1 and CTL-A4, injected every 15 days, proves to be the most effective in awakening their anticancer activity, the blocking of PD-1 being decisive for the success of the treatment.
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96% chance of being in good health
After three years of survival, a sign of effective treatment, the chances of patients still being healthy 10 years later were 96%, shows this study published in the New England Journal of MedicineThis assessment appears very satisfactory because the average survival time of patients with a Melanoma advance did not exceed one year 15 years ago.
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This remains the case for the four out of ten patients who do not respond to this treatment and for whom new types of immunotherapy are actively being sought.
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