Dr. Deirdre Cohen on Emerging Agents in Gastric Cancer

Deirdre J. Cohen, MD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses emerging agents for the treatment of patients with gastric cancer.

Inhibitors have been developed in gastric cancer to target both HER2 and VEGF, Cohen explains. These agents provide meaningful survival benefits for patients, she adds. In addition to other agents in development, Cohen says there is an explosion of studies investigating immunotherapy agents.

An expansion phase Ib study looked at the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with PD-L1—positive tumors. Results showed an overall response rate of approximately 22% and a median time to response of 8 weeks, she says. A second phase Ib study examined avelumab as second-line and maintenance therapy, which also demonstrated encouraging responses. Phase III data is needed to confirm these findings.