Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, chief of medical oncology, professor of medicine, Yale Cancer Center, Smilow Cancer Hospital, discusses the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in patients with advanced non—small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The CheckMate-227 trial was a phase III study that evaluated nivolumab-based regimens as a first-line treatment for patients with NSCLC. In one part of the trial, researchers compared nivolumab combined with ipilimumab with chemotherapy alone; results showed a significant improvement in overall survival (OS) in patients who had PD-L1—high expression. The median OS was 17.1 months (95% CI, 15.0-20.1) with nivolumab plus ipilimumab and 14.9 months (95% CI, 12.7-16.7) with chemotherapy (P = .007). The 2-year OS rates were 40.0% with nivolumab/ipilimumab and 32.8% with chemotherapy.

The findings suggest that a niche for nivolumab and ipilimumab is in the future, concludes Herbst.