Dr. Levy Discusses Recent Updates in Immunotherapy for Lung Cancer

Benjamin P. Levy, MD, director, Thoracic Medical Oncology, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, associate director, Cancer Clinical Trials Office, Mount Sinai Hospital, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, discusses new data on immunotherapy for lung cancer.

Levy says the field of immunotherapy in lung cancer is very exciting. The unique ability to harness a patients’ immune system to attack the cancer is what sets these agents apart from other agents. There are currently multiple immunotherapeutic agents being looked at for the treatment of lung cancer, Levy says.

Results of the CheckMate 063 study, which evaluated the efficacy of nivolumab, showed that nivolumab delivered durable responses in patients with advanced squamous cell lung cancer.

Levy says approximately 15% of patients treated with nivolumab in this study responded — historical response rates in this setting are approximately 5-10%. Nivolumab also demonstrated a one-year overall survival rate of 40% in this trial. Levy says this is unprecedented, as historical rates are approximately 10-15%.

More resources are needed to find biomarkers to determine which patients will respond to each immunotherapy.

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