Immunotherapy Drug Keytruda Approved For Colon Cancer Patients With Specific Tumor Abnormalities

“This is groundbreaking,” says Dr. Jun Gong, a medical oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. “Not only because pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is well-tolerated and demonstrated more than doubling progression-free survival, [but it also] offers patients, for the first time with metastatic colorectal cancer, an option to avoid chemotherapy.”

In a clinical trial, researchers found that using pembrolizumab as opposed to standard treatment significantly improved a patient’s progression-free survival, also known as PFS, (16.5 months vs. 8.2 months), meaning it increased the length of time before the cancer worsened. In addition to improving PFS, Keytruda being used as a first-line treatment allows patients the opportunity to avoid chemotherapy which can often be quite toxic to the body, thus leading to diminished quality of life.

Dr. Heather Yeo explains how clinical trials can benefit colorectal patients

How Do Checkpoint Inhibitors Work In Cancer Treatment?

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a part of immunotherapy, a treatment option which harnesses the power of your own immune system to fight off cancer cells. The inhibitors are man-made antibodies which help shut down the proteins and cells which drive cancer’s ability to spread.

Checkpoint inhibitors are typically used for patients with late-stage cancers, but pembrolizumab’s approval by the FDA marks the first for an immunotherapy treatment without the need for chemotherapy for colorectal patients with MSI-H or dMMR.

“The standard for first-line or initial treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, in general for the past several decades, has been chemotherapy with or without a biologic agent depending on the molecular profile of the colorectal tumor,” Dr. Gong says. “However, much work remains to develop an effective and FDA-approved immunotherapy for the overwhelming majority of metastatic colorectal cancer patients that have the MSS or dMMR phenotype. For now, pembrolizumab likely will become the new treatment standard for the first-line treatment of MSI-H or dMMR metastatic colorectal cancer as a single agent compared to the multi-agent combination chemotherapies that have dominated the landscape for so long.”

Dr. Scott Strome explains how checkpoint inhibitors work in cancer

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