FDA Approval Summary: Pembrolizumab for Treatment of Metastatic Non‐Small Cell Lung Cancer: First‐Line Therapy and Beyond

AbstractOn October 24, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda; Merck 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.41–0.89; p = .005), and significant improvement in PFS (HR 0.50; 95% CI: 0.37–0.68; p < .001). In KEYNOTE‐010, patients with disease progression on or after platinum‐containing chemotherapy received pembrolizumab IV 2 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg, or docetaxel 75 mg/m2 every 3 weeks. The HR and p value for OS was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.58–0.88), p < .001 comparing pembrolizumab 2 mg/kg with chemotherapy and the HR and p value for OS was 0.61 (95% CI: 0.49–0.75), p < .001 comparing pembrolizumab 10 mg/kg with chemotherapy.Implications for Practice.This is the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of a checkpoint inhibitor for first‐line treatment of lung cancer. This approval expands the pembrolizumab indication in second‐line treatment of lung cancer to include all patients with programmed death‐ligand 1‐expressing non‐small cell lung cancer.

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