The KEYNOTE - 183, KEYNOTE - 185, and KEYNOTE - 023 trials evaluating the programmed death 1 (PD - 1) inhibitor pembrolizumab in combination with pomalidomide or lenalidomide for patients with multiple myeloma were placed on hold due to the increase in deaths
on the pembrolizumab arms of KEYNOTE - 183 and KEYNOTE - 185 trials.
Not exact matches
For those taking
pembrolizumab, there needs to be a certain threshold of PD - L1 expressed
on the tumor for treatment, according to the FDA's label.
On May 23, the Food and Drug Administration approved
pembrolizumab for cancer patients with mismatch repair mutations for whom other drugs have failed.
Now, patients with PD - L1 expression
on at least half of their cancer cells can receive
pembrolizumab prior to standard chemotherapy.
The drug, Keytruda (
pembrolizumab), was tested
on more than 600 patients who had melanoma that had spread throughout their bodies.
The idea to specifically study this group of patients was based
on groundbreaking research Garon published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year, which found that among patients who received
pembrolizumab, those with PD - L1 expression
on at least 50 percent of their cancer cells showed the longest survival and disease control.
Dr. Weiss» study of
pembrolizumab was presented during a session
on small cell lung cancer when the theme of the conference was Science Drives Lung Cancer Advances.
Checkpoint inhibitors like ipilimumab — which has been
on the market since 2011 — nivolumab, and
pembrolizumab stop tumor cells from stimulating the receptors.
In addition to helping patients live longer, more patients treated with
pembrolizumab responded to treatment and for a longer duration than those treated with chemotherapy; the objective response rate — the percentage of patients whose tumours shrank or disappeared — was almost twice as high with
pembrolizumab: 21 % compared to 11 %
on chemotherapy.
Alley and his team presented data from KEYNOTE - 028, an ongoing trial involving 13 different research sites in six different countries all looking at the effect of
pembrolizumab on patients with advanced malignancies, including malignant pleural mesothelioma.
One patient was treated with the immunotherapy
pembrolizumab and now more than a year after starting treatment remains
on the drug with 77 percent tumor reduction and no new metastases.
Checkpoint inhibitors such as ipilimumab, nivolumab and
pembrolizumab have had a dramatic impact
on treatment of several tumor types, including melanoma, lung cancer, head and neck cancers and others.
In fact, the Food and Drug Administration's approval of
pembrolizumab in May 2017 for adult and pediatric patients with solid tumors and high microsatellite instability, was the first time it had approved a cancer treatment based
on a genetic feature rather than the cancer's location of origin.
On October 2, 2015, the FDA approved the immunotherapy drug
pembrolizumab (Keytruda ®), made by Merck, as second - line treatment for patients with lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer - related death in the U.S. and the world.
By binding to and blocking certain molecules
on T cells, in this case a molecule called PD - 1,
pembrolizumab «takes the brakes off» the immune response, allowing a more powerful response to cancer.
Based primarily
on clinical trials led by Arjun V. Balar, MD, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Genitourinary Medical Oncology Program, the FDA approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq ®) and
pembrolizumab (Keytruda ®) as first - line treatments for these particularly frail patients with advanced bladder cancer in early 2017.
At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2017 Annual Meeting, we presented monotherapy data of nine patients who received G100 with radiation (no
pembrolizumab) that showed 100 % DCR rate, with 44 % of the patients achieved a partial response (PR) based
on WHO criteria, which requires at least a 50 % tumor reduction to qualify as a PR.
At AACR 2018, Dr. Alexander Eggermont presented results of KEYNOTE - 045 / EORTC 1325 - MG, in which melanoma patients with recurrence
on placebo can receive
pembrolizumab.