Practical Approaches to Immunotherapy in the Clinic

The development of immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade has altered the treatment landscape for patients who had but few options only several years ago. Currently, approved anti-checkpoint agents include ipilimumab, the first approved treatment aimed against the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) pathway, and pembrolizumab and nivolumab, which inhibit the programmed death-1 (PD-1) pathway. Careful monitoring and early intervention for immune-mediated side effects is important to mitigate toxicity. Immune-mediated response patterns may differ from response associated with conventional therapies, and so it is important to use caution against early abandonment of treatment. Biomarkers as predictive and prognostic markers of efficacy are still under investigation in an attempt to guide treatment selection in patients with advanced melanoma, and additional studies are needed to provide guidance for selection of checkpoint inhibitors to be used in sequence or combination.