Live or Let Die: T Cell Survival in Cancer Immunotherapy.

Combination immune checkpoint blockade targeting CTLA-4 and PD-1 is thought to reinvigorate exhausted T cells better than monotherapies. In this issue of Immunity, Pai et al. (2019) show that, in the setting of low tumor burden, this combination regimen promotes interferon-γ-dependent T cell hyperactivation and death and thus favors tumor progression.