Is Pembrolizumab Active in Treatment of Advanced Skin Cancer?
Posted: Monday, April 13, 2020
Pembrolizumab may prove to be a safe and effective treatment for patients with four different types of advanced, difficult-to-treat rare cancers, according to results published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. Aung Naing, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, and colleagues, reported a “favorable toxicity profile and antitumor activity” with this immunotherapy in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, adrenocortical carcinoma, carcinoma of an unknown primary, and paraganglioma-pheochromocytoma.
“Findings from our study support further investigation to confirm the clinical activity of pembrolizumab in advanced rare cancers and to identify immune signatures predictive of response to treatment,” said Dr. Naing, in an MD Anderson press release.
For this open-label, phase II trial, patients were enrolled in nine tumor-specific cohorts if they had advanced rare cancers that progressed with common therapies within the previous 6 months. An additional cohort was included for other histologies. A group of 127 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of skin, adrenocortical carcinoma, carcinoma of an unknown primary, and paraganglioma-pheochromocytoma who received treatment between August 15, 2016, and July 27, 2018, were part of the study. They received 200 mg of pembrolizumab intravenously every 21 days, and the primary endpoint was rate of no disease progression at 27 weeks.
At the 27-week mark, the rate of no disease progression was 28%, and a confirmed objective response was observed in 15 of 110 evaluable patients. Treatment-related adverse events were recorded in 66 of 127 patients, 12 of whom had grade ≥ 3 treatment-related toxicity.
“Pembrolizumab may be a potential therapeutic option for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, both in treatment naive and refractory settings,” concluded the investigators.
Disclosure: The study authors’ disclosure information can be found at jitc.bmj.com.
