The NHS has a site called 'Behind The Headlines' which analyses articles about medical discoveries which appear in the media. It's also worth a look: http://ww

The NHS has a site called 'Behind The Headlines' which analyses articles about medical discoveries which appear in the media. It's also worth a look: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/06June/Pages/Immunotherapy-drug-combo-could-combat-melanoma.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/06June/Pages/Immunotherapy-drug-... Some useful points: > "Severe side effects were seen in 55% of those taking the combination, 27% of the ipilimumab group and 16% of the nivolumab group. The most common of these side effects were diarrhoea and bowel inflammation...Side effects of the drugs were also a considerable problem. After one year, only a relatively small proportion of people in all treatment groups were still taking the drugs. In the combination group people had often stopped taking the drugs because of side effects. It will be important to compare people’s quality of life while taking these different drugs and their combination." ... > "Some of the wide media coverage of this study, arguably moves into the realm of hype. Much of the reporting could give the impression that immunotherapy is a new discovery. In fact it was first used in the late 1980s, and has been used in the treatment of various conditions." ... > Overall, people taking the combination lived longer without the disease progressing (average 11.5 months) compared with either drug alone (average 6.9 months with nivolumab and 2.9 months with ipilimumab). People whose tumour displayed the protein that nivolumab targets (PD-L1), did just as well with nivolumab alone as the combination. The study is ongoing and it’s not yet known whether people taking the combination treatment live longer overall than those taking the individual drugs.