Dr. Sonpavde on Immunotherapy Combination Studies in Urothelial Carcinoma

Guru Sonpavde, MD, director of Bladder Cancer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses immunotherapy combination studies for the treatment of patients with urothelial carcinoma.

There is an ongoing, phase III, first-line study investigating durvalumab (Imfinzi) plus tremelimumab versus gemcitabine platinum-based chemotherapy versus durvalumab alone.

Additionally, one study is investigating ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) in the first-line setting of advanced urothelial carcinoma, comparing it with gemcitabine and cisplatin. There is a substudy investigating gemcitabine cisplatin plus or minus nivolumab in cisplatin eligible patients.

In a phase I/II study investigating the combination, the objective response rate for patients receiving nivolumab at 1 mg/kg with ipilimumab at 3 mg/kg (N1/I3; n = 26) was 38.5% (95% CI, 20.2-59.4), with a complete response rate of 3.8%. In patients receiving nivolumab at 3 mg/kg and ipilimumab at 1 mg/kg (N3/I1; n = 104), the ORR was 26% (95% CI, 17.9-35.5) and the CR rate was 2.9%.