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No chemo. The entire idea of this regime is to hit the tumour with immuno to get the reaction. They want lots of tumour cells and for it to be "treatment naive" - Richard hadn't even had corticosteroids, which dampens immune.

Once they primed his system they excised as much as possible and kept the immuno going while doing a course of radiation.

Profs Long and Scolyer work with melanoma where chemo is rarely used these days.

That was a concern in the early days of development of anti PD(L)-1 agents - that chemo and even steroids would harm the T-cells you’re trying to activate.

Yet there are settings where a deliberate combination of anti PD-1 with chemotherapy is the standard of care. And there are other types of immunotherapy where a combination with chemotherapy is advantageous too.

From what I read (in a book written by Scolyer), the treatment didn't involve chemo. It was along the lines of: 1. immunotherapy 2. Surgery to remove the bulk of the tumour. 3. More immunotherapy 4. Radiation therapy 5. A course of vaccine customised to the genome of the cancer