The same session featured other studies demonstrating positive outcomes of immunotherapy in NSCLC. Serving as a discussant, Ferdinandos Skoulidis MD, PhD, commented,"I would argue that we are now at an inflection point where we can claim that we are altering the natural history of the disease for a subset of patients." Dr. Skoulidis is an associate professor of thoracic oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
At 6 years follow-up, 27% of PD-L1 positive patients who responded to NIVO-IPI remained in response, versus 22% in the NIVO group and 4% in the chemotherapy only group. Among PD-L1 negative patients, 25% of combination therapy responders remained in response at 6 years, while there were 10% still in response among the NIVO group, and none in the chemotherapy only group.Dr. Peters presented a slide showing tumor burden reductions occurring in responders.
The researchers also noted longer progression-free survival and overall response rate in the NIVO-IPI group than the chemotherapy group in both PD-L1 positive and PD-L1 negative patients. He also made a case for personalizing immunotherapy and suggested that CheckMate 227 could provide some guidance."Ipilimumab/nivolumab – the CheckMate 227 regimen – appears to be particularly active in terms of inducing long-term, long-lasting responses and overall survival in patients harboring tumors that are negative for PD-L1," he said.