Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, professor of medicine, surgery, and immunology, director, University of Pittsburgh Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh, president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, discusses the potential role for immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with sarcoma.

In patients with sarcoma in the SARC028 trial, immunotherapy was found to be encouraging with promising responses but was not determined to be a "home run," Butterfield explains. However, this will lead to more PD-1/PD-L1—based studies, especially with combination regimens. This is where biomarkers will again become very important, as researchers will further explore blood cells, serum, and tumors for signals to have rationally directed combinations following this expansion cohort.

In SARC028, biomarker analyses from the number of patients who responded to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) will help investigators determine which combination regimens to move forward with, she adds.

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Potential Role of Immunotherapy in the Treatment of Patients With Sarcoma

Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, professor of medicine, surgery, and immunology, director, University of Pittsburgh Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh, president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, discusses a clinical trial exploring the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in multiple subtypes of sarcoma.

This is one of the first tests of PD-1 blockade in sarcomas because the tumors are very divergent, Butterfield explains. The study shows that there was efficacy in 3 subtypes of sarcoma, which leads to the next level of questioning: what are the biomarkers? In a tumor analysis, PD-L1 staining was found on some tumor, There were also interesting findings of PD-L1 expression levels on tumors that was unexpectedly low, given the clinical outcomes. This will not be an easy "story" to tell, she adds.

By examining serum, it was found that soluble PD ligands being correlative of good clinical outcomes and a new area to pursue further.

Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD

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