Combining the immunotherapy agent durvalumab with the chemotherapy agents pemetrexed and cisplatin or carboplatin may provide a new treatment option for patients who have inoperable pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the tissues lining the lungs, according to a phase II clinical trial led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. In the multicenter study PrE0505 (NCT02899195), 55 patients with mesothelioma received a fixed dose of durvalumab intravenously once every three weeks, in combination with pemetrexed and cisplatin or carboplatin for up to six cycles. The median overall survival for all patients was 20.4 months-- significantly longer than the 12 months seen historically for similar patients. For patients with epithelioid tumors, the most common subtype of mesothelioma, survival was 24.3 months. The addition of durvalumab to chemotherapy did not lead to any unexpected toxicities.