Dr. Garon on Immunotherapy Combinations in NSCLC

Edward B. Garon, MD, director of Thoracic Oncology at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California, Los Angeles, discusses immunotherapy combinations in non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Although the combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy has historically been controversial in the NSCLC treatment landscape, Garon says that results from trials such as IMpower150 have begun to provide clarity. In the IMpower150 trial, patients who received the atezolizumab (Tecentriq) along with bevacizumab (Avastin) and chemotherapy had a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 8.3 months compared with 6.8 months with bevacizumab and chemotherapy. This translated to a 38% reduction in the hazard for progression or death.

Additionally, data from CheckMate-227 of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in treatment-naïve patients with NSCLC with high tumor mutation burden (TMB) more than tripled the 1-year PFS rate versus chemotherapy. The 1-year PFS rate was 43% for patients with high TMB (≥10 mutations/megabase) assigned to the immunotherapy combination compared with 13% for those assigned to platinum-doublet chemotherapy.