While less chair time is ideal for patients and staff alike, we have not yet made the move to the 4-week dosing. Two reasons:

– We are a bit hesitant to go that amount of time between visits. When and if we do make the transition, most likely we would do so with the “trusted” patients 1st. The ones we feel confident they WILL contact us to report a new or changing symptom.

– More importantly to our group and worth mentioning here is that data from the Checkmate 038 trial (unpublished data- can be provided if you ask BMS for it) demonstrating a higher incidence of Grade 1 and Grade 2 hypersensitivity/ infusion reaction for both nivo monotherapy, and nivo + ipi combination at the 30 minute infusion rate. No high grade reaction, NO deaths.

So- for now, we will make decisions on case-by-case basis. However, it is nice to have options!!

We haven’t switched anyone yet, but our thinking is in line with yours…..we’ll switch the long-term responders who are reliable about reporting changes first and see how that goes before switching the others.