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"Earlier Pembrolizumab Use May Be Beneficial in mUC" - Jody A. Charnow

  • Renal & Urology News
  • New York, NY
  • (June 04, 2019)

Earlier pembrolizumab treatment using a “switch maintenance” approach may delay disease progression in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC) who achieve stable disease on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, investigators reported at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago. In a phase 2 double-blind trial, Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and colleagues enrolled 107 patients with mUC who achieved at least stable disease after up to 8 cycles of first-line platinum based chemotherapy. They randomly assigned 55 patients to receive pembrolizumab 200 mg IV every 3 weeks and 52 to receive placebo for 24 weeks. Patients who progressed on placebo could cross over to the pembrolizumab group. The 18-month restricted mean progression-free survival time was 8.2 months in the pembrolizumab arm compared with 5.6 months in the placebo group, Dr Galsky’s team reported.


— Matthew D. Galsky, MD, Director, Genitourinary Medical Oncology, The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai

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