Dr. Kelly on the Toxicity Profile in CheckMate-227 in NSCLC

Karen Kelly, MD, associate director for Clinical Research, Jennifer Rene Harmon Tegley and Elizabeth Erica Harmon Endowed Chair in Cancer Clinical Research, professor of Medicine, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, UC Davis Health System, discusses the toxicity profile of the therapies used in the CheckMate-227 trial.

The study assessed nivolumab (Opdivo), nivolumab plus ipilimumab (Yervoy), nivolumab plus platinum-doublet chemotherapy, and platinum-doublet chemotherapy alone as different treatment options for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The biggest concerns for toxicity lie in the ipilimumab arm, says Kelly. Some of the adverse events with this drug included colitis and hepatitis. Given the fact that these drug combinations have been evaluated in other cancer types, physicians already have an idea of how to manage such toxicities. However, Kelly emphasizes that it is important to note that patients with lung cancer are often older and have more comorbidities. Therefore, there is still a bit of a learning curve in managing adverse events in this particular patient population.