Vinay Prasad: When do the checkpoint inhibitors work

Vinay Prasad, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, shared a post by Amol Akhade, consultant medical oncologist, hematooncologist at Suyog cancer clinics, on X/Twitter, adding:

”In some indications all the checkpoint inhibitors work. Example melanoma. In other malignancies, only some work, for example, Small cell lung cancer and HCC. What do you think explains these findings? We will be publishing it soon.”

Quoting Amol Akhade’s post:

”Nice 5 year update in Annals of Oncology about checkmate 040 and use of nivolumab single agent. In second line HCC. But what they fail to tell in this update is that nivolumab is actually withdrawn by company for for indication in July 2021 as confirmatory trial checkmate – 459 trial failed to show benifit. May be readers deserve to know this update also. Read further.”

Source: Vinay Prasad/X and Amol Akhade/X