Immunotherapy has been chosen as the "clinical cancer advance of the year" by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in its Clinical Cancer Advances 2016 report. The report documents "important progress being made in clinical cancer research and highlights emerging trends in the field," the society explains. Three immune checkpoint blockers are now available in the United States — ipilimumab ( Yervoy ), nivolumab ( Opdivo ), and pembrolizumab ( Keytruda ) — and many others are in development.
These drugs initially made an impact in advanced melanoma where patients previously had a life expectancy measured in months, but, in some cases, the new immunotherapies have extended that time to years. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved 10 new cancer drugs, including two, first-in-class therapies: olaparib ( Lynparza ) for the treatment of advanced serous ovarian…
