Dr David Carbone talks to ecancer about the results from CheckMate 9LA: First-line nivolumab (NIVO) + ipilimumab (IPI) + chemo in patients with advanced NSCLC and brain metastases.

He begins by recapping on how 30 years ago brain metastases were a truly horrible prognosis with a 6 week median survival after diagnosis.

Dr Carbone then goes onto explain that they identified 101 patients that had brain metastases at base-line. This study was randomised, so 51 patients were in the NIVO + IPI + Chemo arm, and 50 were in the Chemo only arm. He says that patients with brain metastases at base-line who were treated with Chemo alone did quite poorly, whereas the patients treated with IPI + NIVO + Chemo did just as well as patients without brain metastases.

He concludes by saying the results from this study can at the very least give hope to patients with brain metastases found at the time of diagnosis, whereas, previously mentioned, they had a terrible prognosis. Now it can be said that with this regimen their survival is similar to patients without brain metastases.