Dr. Rudin on Immunotherapy Biomarkers in Lung Cancer

Charles M. Rudin, MD, PhD, chief, Thoracic Oncology Service, co-director, Druckenmiller Center for Lung Cancer Research, Sylvia Hassenfeld Chair in Lung Cancer Research, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses biomarkers for immunotherapy in lung cancer.

The current biomarkers used to select for immunotherapy in lung cancer are not perfect, says Rudin, but they all enrich for the probability of response. PD-L1 and tumor mutation burden (TMB) are 2 of the markers that are often used, with TMB quickly becoming a popular choice.

It is hard to know how the field will play out in the future, Rudin says. If there is benefit in giving immunotherapy to patients who are biomarker negative, even if the relative benefit is smaller, there is good rationale for the use of immunotherapy in those populations—–especially if these patients demonstrate durable responses with long-term progression-free survival.