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Lung Cancer

Frontline nivolumab — CheckMate 026 ends in stalemate

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 14, page 458 (2017)Cite this article

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The anti-PD-1 antibody nivolumab is an approved second-line therapy for advanced-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but earlier use of this immunotherapeutic agent might be beneficial. In the phase III CheckMate 026 trial, David Carbone et al. addressed this question.

The researchers randomly assigned 541 patients with NSCLC and ≥1% PD-L1-positive tumour cells to receive frontline nivolumab or platinum-based chemotherapy. The primary analysis involved 428 patients with ≥5% PD-L1 positivity, and revealed, strikingly, that nivolumab did not improve progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS): median of 4.2 months and 14.4 months, respectively, versus 5.9 months and 13.2 months with chemotherapy. Similar results were reported for the entire trial population and, intriguingly, for the subgroup with a high level of (≥50%) PD-L1 positivity.

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References

  1. Carbone, D. P. et al. First-line nivolumab in stage IV or recurrent non-small-cell lung cancer. N. Engl. J. Med. 376, 2415–2426 (2017)

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  1. David Killock
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Killock, D. Frontline nivolumab — CheckMate 026 ends in stalemate. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 14, 458 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2017.102

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