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Patients who had had a relapse after receiving platinum-containing chemotherapy and a PD-1 or PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor were assigned to receive enfortumab vedotin or one of three chemotherapy agents chosen by their doctor. Enfortumab vedotin prolonged progression-free and overall survival.

Lenvatinib plus either pembrolizumab or everolimus was compared with sunitinib as first-line therapy for advanced renal cell cancer. Progression-free survival was significantly longer with lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab than with sunitinib. Lenvatinib plus everolimus was also more effective than sunitinib, but the difference was smaller.

Releasing T cells from inhibitory control has been a strategy exploited by the anti–CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab. Now an antibody against a second checkpoint molecule, programmed death 1 (PD-1), has also shown activity against cancers, including non–small-cell lung cancer. Human cancers harbor numerous genetic and epigenetic alterations, generating neoantigens that are potentially recognizable by the immune system. 1 Although an endogenous immune response to cancer is observed in preclinical models and patients, this response is ineffective, because tumors develop multiple resistance mechanisms, including local immune suppression, induction of tolerance, and systemic dysfunction in T-cell signaling. 2 – 5 Moreover, tumors may exploit several distinct pathways to actively evade immune destruction, including endogenous “immune checkpoints” that normally terminate immune responses after antigen activation. These observations have resulted in intensive efforts to develop immunotherapeutic approaches for cancer, including immune-checkpoint-pathway inhibitors such as anti–CTLA-4 antibody . . .

Glioblastoma is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults and is associated with poor survival. The Ivy Foundation Early Phase Clinical Trials Consortium conducted a randomized, multi-institution clinical trial to evaluate immune responses and survival following neoadjuvant and/or adjuvant therapy with pembrolizumab in 35 patients with recurrent, surgically resectable glioblastoma. Patients who were randomized to receive neoadjuvant pembrolizumab, with continued adjuvant therapy following surgery, had significantly extended overall survival compared to patients that were randomized to receive adjuvant, post-surgical programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) blockade alone. Neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade was associated with upregulation of T cell– and interferon-γ-related gene expression, but downregulation of cell-cycle-related gene expression within the tumor, which was not seen in patients that received adjuvant therapy alone. Focal induction of programmed death-ligand 1 in the tumor microenvironment, enhanced clonal expansion of T cells, decreased PD-1 expression on peripheral blood T cells and a decreasing monocytic population was observed more frequently in the neoadjuvant group than in patients treated only in the adjuvant setting. These findings suggest that the neoadjuvant administration of PD-1 blockade enhances both the local and systemic antitumor immune response and may represent a more efficacious approach to the treatment of this uniformly lethal brain tumor. Neoadjuvant pembrolizumab promotes a survival benefit with intratumoral and systemic immune responses in patients with recurrent glioblastoma.

In a randomized trial involving 542 patients with relapsed urothelial cancer, treatment with pembrolizumab resulted in overall survival of more than 10 months, as compared with 7 months with chemotherapy. Urothelial cancer is highly lethal in the metastatic state. 1 Platinum-based combination chemotherapy remains the standard first-line treatment for metastatic disease. Carboplatin-based combinations are associated with a median overall survival of 9 months, 2 and cisplatin-based combinations with a median overall survival of 12 to 15 months. 3 However, after platinum-based chemotherapy, there is no internationally accepted standard of care. Single-agent paclitaxel and docetaxel are commonly used worldwide, 4 , 5 and in Europe, vinflunine has been approved on the basis of an overall survival advantage of 2 months over best supportive care. 6 , 7 Because the median overall survival with second-line therapy is only 6 . . .

Epigenetic modifications of chromatin, including histone acetylation, and tumor angiogenesis play pivotal roles in creating an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. In the randomized phase 2 CAPability-01 trial, we investigated the potential efficacy of combining the programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody sintilimab with the histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) chidamide with or without the anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) monoclonal antibody bevacizumab in patients with unresectable chemotherapy-refractory locally advanced or metastatic microsatellite stable/proficient mismatch repair (MSS/pMMR) colorectal cancer. Forty-eight patients were randomly assigned to either the doublet arm (sintilimab and chidamide, n  = 23) or the triplet arm (sintilimab, chidamide and bevacizumab, n  = 25). The primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS) rate at 18 weeks (18wPFS rate) was met with a rate of 43.8% (21 of 48) for the entire study population. Secondary endpoint results include a median PFS of 3.7 months, an overall response rate of 29.2% (14 of 48), a disease control rate of 56.3% (27 of 48) and a median duration of response of 12.0 months. The secondary endpoint of median overall survival time was not mature. The triplet arm exhibited significantly improved outcomes compared to the doublet arm, with a greater 18wPFS rate (64.0% versus 21.7%, P  = 0.003), higher overall response rate (44.0% versus 13.0%, P  = 0.027) and longer median PFS rate (7.3 months versus 1.5 months, P  = 0.006). The most common treatment-emergent adverse events observed in both the triplet and doublet arms included proteinuria, thrombocytopenia, neutropenia, anemia, leukopenia and diarrhea. There were two treatment-related fatalities (hepatic failure and pneumonitis). Analysis of bulk RNA sequencing data from the patients suggested that the triplet combination enhanced CD8 + T cell infiltration, resulting in a more immunologically active tumor microenvironment. Our study suggests that the combination of a PD-1 antibody, an HDACi, and a VEGF antibody could be a promising treatment regimen for patients with MSS/pMMR advanced colorectal cancer. ClinicalTrials.gov registration: NCT04724239 . In a randomized phase 2 trial comparing anti-PD-1 plus anti-VEGF plus an HDAC inhibitor versus anti-PD-1 plus an HDAC inhibitor in patients with MSS/pMMR colorectal cancer, the triplet combination led to significantly better 18-week progression-free survival.

The addition of pembrolizumab, an anti–PD-1 antibody, to a platinum–taxane chemotherapy combination significantly prolonged progression-free and overall survival among patients with untreated squamous cell lung cancer, regardless of the level of tumor PD-L1 expression.

Immune checkpoint therapy is being tested in the neoadjuvant setting for patients with localized urothelial carcinoma 1 , 2 , with one study reporting data in cisplatin-ineligible patients who received anti-PD-L1 monotherapy 2 . The study reported that patients with bulky tumors, a known high-risk feature defined as greater than clinical T2 disease, had fewer responses, with pathological complete response rate of 17% 2 . Here we report on the first pilot combination neoadjuvant trial ( NCT02812420 ) with anti-PD-L1 (durvalumab) plus anti-CTLA-4 (tremelimumab) in cisplatin-ineligible patients, with all tumors identified as having high-risk features ( n  = 28). High-risk features were defined by bulky tumors, variant histology, lymphovascular invasion, hydronephrosis and/or high-grade upper tract disease 3 – 5 . The primary endpoint was safety and we observed 6 of 28 patients (21%) with grade ≥3 immune-related adverse events, consisting of asymptomatic laboratory abnormalities ( n  = 4), hepatitis and colitis ( n  = 2). We also observed pathological complete response of 37.5% and downstaging to pT1 or less in 58% of patients who completed surgery ( n  = 24). In summary, we provide initial safety, efficacy and biomarker data with neoadjuvant combination anti-PD-L1 plus anti-CTLA-4, which warrants further development for patients with localized urothelial carcinoma, especially cisplatin-ineligible patients with high-risk features who do not currently have an established standard-of-care neoadjuvant treatment. Neoadjuvant combination of immune checkpoint therapy in patients with cisplatin-ineligible bladder cancer achieves clinical efficacy and uncovers immune features as potential predictive biomarkers of treatment response.

BACKGROUNDThe anti-programmed cell death 1 (anti-PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab is clinically active against non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In addition to T cells, human natural killer (NK) cells, reported to have the potential to prolong the survival of patients with advanced NSCLC, also express PD-1. This study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab plus allogeneic NK cells in patients with previously treated advanced NSCLC.METHODSIn total, 109 enrolled patients with a programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor proportion score (TPS) of 1% or higher were randomly allocated to group A (n = 55 patients given pembrolizumab plus NK cells) or group B (n = 54 patients given pembrolizumab alone). The patients received i.v. pembrolizumab (10 mg/kg) once every 3 weeks and continued treatment until the occurrence of tumor progression or unacceptable toxicity. The patients in group A continuously received 2 cycles of NK cell therapy as 1 course of treatment.RESULTSIn our study, patients in group A had longer survival than did patients in group B (median overall survival [OS]: 15.5 months vs. 13.3 months; median progression-free survival [PFS]: 6.5 months vs. 4.3 months; P < 0.05). In group A patients with a TPS of 50% or higher, the median OS and PFS was significantly longer. Moreover, the patients in group A treated with multiple courses of NK cell infusion had better OS (18.5 months) than did those who received a single course of NK cell infusion (13.5 months).CONCLUSIONPembrolizumab plus NK cell therapy yielded improved survival benefits in patients with previously treated PD-L1+ advanced NSCLC.TRIAL REGISTRATIONClinicalTrials.gov NCT02843204.FUNDINGThis work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) - Guangdong Joint Foundation of China (no. U1601225); the NSFC (no. 81671965); the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory Construction Project of China (no. 2017B030314034); and the Key Scientific and Technological Program of Guangzhou City (no. 201607020016).

In patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, the combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab was associated with better progression-free and overall survival outcomes, response rate, and preservation of quality of life than sorafenib. Serious toxic effects were noted in 38% of patients, similar to that seen in previous studies of these agents.