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MONDAY, June 4, 2018 (HealthDay News) — For patients with programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)-expressing locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pembrolizumab is associated with better overall survival than chemotherapy, regardless of the PD-L1 tumor proportion score (TPS), according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, held from June 1 to 5 in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Gilberto Lopes, M.D., from the University of Miami Health System, and colleagues compared pembrolizumab with platinum-based chemotherapy at the lower TPS of \u22651 percent. A total of 1,274 patients with previously untreated advanced\/metastatic NSCLC were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to \u226435 cycles of pembrolizumab or no more than six cycles of paclitaxel + carboplatin or pemetrexed + carboplatin with optional pemetrexed maintenance.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that 13.7 and 4.9 percent of patients were still on pembrolizumab and were on pemetrexed maintenance, respectively, after a median follow-up of 12.8 months. In patients with TPS \u226550 percent, TPS \u226520 percent, and TPS \u22651 percent, pembrolizumab correlated with significant improvement in overall survival (hazard ratios, 0.69, 0.77, and 0.81, respectively). The frequency of grade 3 to 5 drug-related adverse events was reduced with pembrolizumab (17.8 versus 41.0 percent).<\/p>\n
“Our study shows that pembrolizumab provides more benefit than chemotherapy for two-thirds of all people with the most common type of lung cancer,” Lopes said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, which manufactures pembrolizumab and partially funded the study.<\/p>\n
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