Dr. Eggermont Discusses Impact of Pembrolizumab in Melanoma

Alexander M. M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, director general of Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus Grand Paris in Villejuif, France, discusses the impact of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the treatment of patients with relapsed melanoma.

Based on the significant impact of overall survival (OS) that has been seen in clinical trials with pembrolizumab as well as researchers’ prior discovery of the PD-1 antibody’s impact on metastases-free survival, this agent should be considered the standard treatment in the relapsed setting, Eggermont says. In the KEYNOTE-054 study, 27.5% of patients treated with placebo developed distant metastases compared with 16% on the pembrolizumab arms. Eggermont says that when such efficacy is seen in a primary endpoint like metastases-free survival, there typically is a significant improvement in OS.

If a drug is active enough to bring all of these benefits at the time of administration, Eggermont says, it is reasonable to expect an improvement in OS. These findings from the KEYNOTE-054 study will be available in 2.5 years.