Pembrolizumab Plus Chemotherapy in Recurrent Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer

The following article features coverage from the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s 50th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage.

Results from a single-arm, phase 2 trial of pembrolizumab in combination with cisplatin and gemcitabine (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02608684) showed manageable toxicity and antitumor activity in women with recurrent, platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer. These findings were presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)’s 50th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.

Six cycles of chemotherapy with intravenous (IV) gemcitabine 750 mg/m² and IV cisplatin 30 mg/m² were administered on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day treatment cycle. In addition, IV pembrolizumab 200 mg was administered on day 1 of each cycle with chemotherapy (cycles 3-6) and as a single-agent maintenance therapy (cycle 7-34).

Of the 19 patients who started treatment, 14 were evaluable by RECIST v1.1 criteria. The overall response rate was 57%, with 7% and 50% of patients achieving a complete response and a partial response (PR), respectively. In addition, 4 patients (29%) achieved stable disease (SD) as best response, resulting in a clinical benefit rate of 86%. The median duration of response and median progression-free survival was 3.5 months and 5.35 months, respectively.

Interestingly, 1 of the 4 patients receiving palliative radiation therapy showed an improvement of best response from SD to PR during the maintenance phase of treatment that was durable (ie, thus far, the patient has received 24 cycles of treatment for ovarian clear cell carcinoma) and was associated with reversal and trend toward normalization of CA-125, possibly representing a durable abscopal response.  No new safety signals were observed in this study.

Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of SGO’s annual meeting by visiting the conference page.

Reference

1. Walsh C, Kamrava M, Rogatko A, et al. Phase II trial of pembrolizumab with cisplatin and gemcitabine in women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Presented at: The Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)’s 50th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer; Honolulu, Hawaii; March 16-19, 2019. Abstract 32.