Mario Sznol, MD

Mario Sznol, MD, from Yale University, discusses where the field of immune-oncology will be 1 and 5 years from now at the 34th Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2019).

Within the relatively short time that ipilimumab and vemurafenib have been commercially available, phase II data for the investigational agents nivolumab and MK-3475, for the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib, and for adoptive cell therapy strongly suggest even further improvements in treatment outcomes.

In this interview, Dr. Mario Sznol shares unique insights into two treatment approaches for melanoma--targeted therapies and a drug that targets the Programmed Death 1 pathway-including how they compare and how they might be combined.

For the past 20 to 30 years, enormous resources have been directed toward the development of effective cancer immunotherapies. The interest in immunotherapeutic approaches comes from the potential specificity imparted by the recognition of tumor-specific antigens combined with the powerful cytolytic properties of cellular and humoral immune effector arms. Earlier attempts to induce and/or expand tumor antigen-specific immune responses in patients involved the systemic administration of cytokines such as interleukin-2 (Proleukin), or immunization with vaccines prepared from whole tumor cells or tumor cell lysates admixed with powerful immunologic adjuvants (stimulators). Unfortunately, only limited efficacy was achieved.