Dr. Garcia on Sequencing Immunotherapies in Bladder Cancer

Jorge Garcia, MD, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Cleveland Clinic, discusses the optimal sequence of immunotherapies for the treatment of patients with bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer has been traditionally considered an orphan disease and there have been limited data supporting treatment for the last 10 to 15 years outside of chemotherapy, Garcia explains. The challenge with having 4 to 5 agents approved by the FDA within 24 months is: which one should clinicians use, and should they all be used if they are biologically similar?

The biggest challenge for physicians in the field is what to do after patients receive a checkpoint inhibitor. Most patients who receive checkpoint inhibition won’t derive any benefit it. Therefore, researchers hope to identify biomarkers to tell them which patients should or should not receive checkpoint inhibitors.