medwireNews: Pembrolizumab monotherapy can achieve responses lasting for more than a year in some patients with previously treated malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), suggest phase 2 trial data.
Of the 118 patients – all of whom had progressed on or were intolerant to standard therapy – in the MPM cohort of the KEYNOTE-158 study, 8% had a partial response to treatment with pembrolizumab 200 mg every 3 weeks.
Sixty percent of the responders were estimated to have a response lasting at least 12.0 months, and the median duration of response was 14.3 months (range, 4.0–33.9+ months).
The median progression-free and overall survival times were 2.1 and 10.0 months, respectively, report Timothy Yap (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA) and co-investigators in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
They note that the PD-1 inhibitor had “manageable toxicity,” with grade 3–4 treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) occurring in 16% of participants and serious TRAEs in 12%. The rate of discontinuation due to TRAEs was 11% and one death due to sleep apnea was considered related to study treatment.
The team concludes that these findings support the PD-1 and PD-L1 pathway “as a potential therapeutic target in some patients with previously treated mesothelioma, but biomarkers that can effectively identify such patients are yet to be elucidated.”
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