Doubling the blockade for melanoma immunotherapy

A few days ago, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo？) in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy？) for the treatment of individuals affected by unresectable or metastatic melanoma with wild-type BRAFV600. This is the first time in history that a combinatorial immunotherapeutic regimen based on two distinct checkpoint blockers receives regulatory approval. Although not all patients respond to ipilimumab plus nivolumab and side effects are not negligible, our therapeutic armamentarium against melanoma now has a new weapon