Dr. Bang on Pembrolizumab for Advanced Gastric Cancer

Yung-Jue Bang, MD, PhD, Professor of Medical Oncology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, President, Biomedical Research Institute, Seoul National University Hospital, discusses pembrolizumab for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer.

Pembrolizumab was investigated as part of the KEYNOTE-012 study, which looked at the checkpoint inhibitor across several solid tumors.

The study is ongoing, and participants in the gastric cancer cohort are receiving pembrolizumab, 10 mg/kg, intravenously (IV) once every 2 weeks, and will continue to receive the drug until disease progression, death, withdrawal of consent, or up until they’ve been on treatment for 2 years.

Previously, gastric cancer was not thought to respond to immunotherapeutic agents like pembrolizumab, said Bang. However durable efficacy has been seen in gastric cancer in the study. The results are surprising, but very promising for the future of immunotherapy in gastric cancer, said Bang.