Currently the standard of care for new metastatic lung cancer is to combine chemotherapy with immunotherapy. Some people are not great candidates for chemotherapy, however. A new study shows that in non-small cell lung cancer patients, combining two immunotherapy medications together (nivolumab + ipilumimab) has a survival advantage over immunotherapy or chemotherapy alone. The side… Read more »
Tag: Immunotherapy
First immunotherapy and chemotherapy combination approved in metastatic triple negative breast cancer
We use immunotherapy in many other cancer types to help increase the immune system’s ability to identify and attack cancer cells. For years, we have not been able to find a way that immunotherapy would benefit women with breast cancer. In a recent trial, women with untreated metastatic breast cancer were randomized to receive chemotherapy,… Read more »
New immunotherapy option for unresectable locally advanced lung cancer
The FDA recently approved an immunotherapy treatment, durvalumab, against programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) for locally advanced (unresectable) non-small cell lung cancer after treatment with chemotherapy and radiation. The PACIFIC trial was recently published that looked at durvalumab as a consolidation therapy in patients with stage III NSCLC who did not have disease progression after… Read more »
FDA approves first chemotherapy and immunotherapy combination for non-small cell lung cancer
The FDA recently granted accelerated approval for pembrolizumab in combination with pemetrexed and carboplatin for the treatment of patients with previously untreated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (non-squamous). This is the first approval to combine immunotherapy with chemotherapy in lung cancer. The trial compared standard chemotherapy to pembrolizumab along with standard chemotherapy in patients that… Read more »
FDA approves immunotherapy for first molecular indication irregardless of tumor type
In May, the FDA approved pembrolizumab in any unresectable or metastatic tumor with mismatch repair deficiency or microsatellite instability. These are terms to describe mutations found in some tumors that prevent your body’s cells from repairing errors in DNA copy. This leads to instability and tumor growth. The most common tumor types where we find… Read more »
Immunotherapy continues to help improve cancer treatment in certain patients
Immunotherapy 2.0 named clinical advance of the year in cancer care. A lot of our updates are about new indications for immunotherapy to treat many types of cancer. This past year, new indications were approved for treatment in melanoma, bladder cancer, head and neck cancer, lung cancer and kidney cancer. While immunotherapy does not work… Read more »
Immunotherapy now approved as front-line treatment for certain subset of patients with non-small cell lung cancer
The KEYNOTE-024 trial was recently published that will be a game-changer for the first-line treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. In a certain subset of patients with PD-L1 expression over 50% (PD-L1 is a marker of immune activity within the tumor), patients were randomized to receive either standard chemotherapy or pembrolizumab (an immune therapy… Read more »
Immunotherapy named as the “Advance of the year”
The American Society of Clinical Oncology named immunotherapy as the “Advance of the year”. There were many exciting developments, as you can see from some of our previous posts. There have also been exciting trials with immune therapy in bladder cancer, Hodgkin disease, liver cancer and head and neck cancer. These are especially exciting because… Read more »
