Of the 16 patients who survived at least five years, nine were male, 12 were current smokers at baseline
MONDAY, April 3, 2017 (HealthDay News) — For patients with pretreated advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), nivolumab is associated with a five-year overall survival rate of 16 percent, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 1 to 5 in Washington, D.C.
Julie Brahmer, M.D., from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and colleagues reported updated results from the CA209-003 study based on a five-year follow-up for an immune checkpoint inhibitor. One hundred twenty-nine patients with heavily pretreated advanced NSCLC received nivolumab every two weeks for up to 96 weeks. Patients were followed for a minimum of 58.25 months.
The researchers found that the five-year overall survival rate in all patients was 16 percent. Patients with squamous and nonsquamous NSCLC had similar overall survival rates at five years (16 and 15 percent, respectively). Nine of the 16 patients who survived five years or more were male and 12 were current smokers at baseline. Nine of the 16 patients completed the maximum number of nivolumab cycles per protocol. Twelve patients had received no further therapy after stopping nivolumab and were without evidence of progressive disease at five years.
“We are performing further studies to learn why these patients did so well for so long and better understand which patients can stop treatment at two years and which of them need to continue treatment beyond two years,” Brahmer said in a statement.
One author disclosed financial ties to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which manufactures nivolumab and funded the study.
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