Immune therapy wins big against lung cancer

FOR the first time, a treatment that boosts the immune system greatly improved survival in people newly diagnosed with the most common form of lung cancer. It’s the biggest win so far for immunotherapy, which has had much of its success until now in less common cancers.

In the study, Merck’s Keytruda, given with standard chemotherapy, cut in half the risk of dying or having the cancer worsen, compared to chemo alone after nearly one year. The results are expected to quickly set a new standard of care for about 70,000 patients each year in the United States whose lung cancer has already spread by the time it’s found.

Another study found that an immunotherapy combo — the Bristol-Myers Squibb drugs Opdivo and Yervoy — worked better than chemo for delaying the time until cancer worsened in advanced lung cancer patients whose tumors have many gene flaws, as nearly half do. But the benefit lasted less than two months on average and it’s too soon to know if the combo improves overall survival, as Keytruda did.

All of these immune therapy treatments worked for only about half of patients, but that’s far better than chemo has done in the past.

“We’re not nearly where we need to be yet,” said Dr Roy Herbst, a Yale Cancer Center lung expert who had no role in the studies.

Results were discussed yesterday at an American Association for Cancer Research conference in Chicago and published by the New England Journal of Medicine. The studies were sponsored by the drugmakers, and many study leaders and Herbst consult for the companies.

Keytruda, Yervoy and Opdivo are called checkpoint inhibitors. They remove a cloak that some cancer cells have that hides them from the immune system. The drugs are given through IVs and cost about US$12,500 a month.

Keytruda was approved last year as an initial treatment with chemo for the most common form of advanced lung cancer, but doctors have been leery to use it because that was based on a small study that did not show whether it prolongs life.

The new study, led by Dr Leena Gandhi of New York Univerty’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, gives that proof. In it, 616 patients were given chemo and some also received Keytruda.

After one year, 69 percent of people originally assigned to Keytruda were alive versus 49 percent of the others.