CheckMate 743

CheckMate 743, trial NCT02899299 sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb and reported in 2020, was the first immunotherapy trial to lengthen survival in unresectable pleural mesothelioma, giving the first new first-line option in sixteen years. It randomised 605 patients to nivolumab plus ipilimumab or platinum and pemetrexed, met its primary overall survival endpoint with a durable minority alive at five years and the largest benefit in non-epithelioid histology, and led to FDA approval in October 2020 with severe treatment-related events in about a third. OnCo links it to mesothelioma, nivolumab, ipilimumab, pemetrexed, the histology term, Paul Baas, Solange Peters and the pairing of histology with first-line choice. Whether epithelioid patients gain enough to justify dual immunotherapy over chemotherapy combinations is the open question.