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A team have evaluated that the dual immunotherapy, PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab and CTLA-4 targeting drug ipilimumab, is effective in treating recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). NPC is often diagnosed at a late stage where patients present with metastatic disease and have increased chance of recurrence. The current, standard treatment for this group of patients is chemotherapy. The team initiated a single-arm, phase 2 trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of combination nivolumab and ipilimumab in 40 patients with metastatic and/or recurrent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated NPC in 2017. EBV is a virus associated with NPC. Patients who...

“THERE is no treatment.” This is the conclusion of an Egyptian papyrus, written around 3000BC, that is the oldest known description of the scourge that is now called “cancer”. And so, more or less, it remained until the 20th century, for merely excising a tumour by surgery rarely eliminates it. Only when doctors worked out how to back up the surgeon’s knife with drugs and radiation did cancer begin to succumb to treatment—albeit, to start with, in a pretty crude fashion. Now, however, that crudeness is rapidly giving way to sophistication, as a new wave of cancer treatments comes to...

Scientists have developed breakthrough drugs that cure skin cancer. The treatment is already having “spectacular” effects in seriously ill melanoma patients—and could soon be used to defeat other types of cancer. … One in six patients ravaged by deadly skin cancer are already being cured by the drugs, the European Cancer Congress was told yesterday, with the possibility of more than half being saved with an new combination. … The first is ipilimumab—or “IPI”. According to research presented to the European congress in Amsterdam yesterday, 17 percent of patients are cured by this drug alone. But many more—perhaps more than...

Exclusive: Cancer - A cure just got closer thanks to a tiny British company - and the result could change lives of millions That's the complete title. Here's the link.