Nivolumab and Relatlimab for Stage III/IV Melanoma: RELATIVITY-098 Trial Results
Melanoma Treatment Advance Faces Setback: Combination Therapy Shows No Survival Benefit in Key Trial
Published online October 18,2025,research presented at both the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2025 Annual Meeting and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2025 reveals a disappointing outcome for a promising melanoma treatment strategy. The RELATIVITY-098 trial investigated whether adding relatlimab to the standard-of-care nivolumab would improve recurrence-free survival in patients with stage III or IV melanoma who had undergone surgery.
Sadly, the study found no statistically meaningful difference in recurrence-free survival between patients receiving the combination of nivolumab and relatlimab versus those treated with nivolumab alone. This finding impacts patients who have already had their melanoma surgically removed but remain at high risk of the cancer returning.
Researchers are now focusing on understanding why the combination didn’t deliver the expected benefit. correlative data from the RELATIVITY-098 trial suggests a key factor: the absence of tumor-infiltrating LAG3+ T cells. Essentially, the patients who might have benefited most from relatlimab – those with T cells expressing the LAG3 protein within their tumors – were not adequately represented in the study population.
This finding highlights the importance of biomarker testing to identify patients most likely to respond to specific immunotherapies. Future research will likely concentrate on identifying biomarkers that can predict which melanoma patients will benefit from LAG-3 targeted therapies, either alone or in combination with other immunotherapies.