Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, on KEYNOTE-100 Study Highlights for Patients

In an interview with CancerNetwork®, Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, explained the key highlights that patients with cancer should be aware of regarding the KEYNOTE-100 trial.

Final results from the KEYNOTE-100 trial of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with advanced recurrent ovarian cancer suggested that pembrolizumab monotherapy was associated with modest antitumor activity in patients with recurrent advanced ovarian cancer.

In addition, the study, presented at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Virtual Scientific Program, did not report any new safety signals.

Transcription:

So single… so using pembrolizumab as a single agent has modest activity, meaning it's around 8%. So, 8 out of 100 women with recurrent ovarian cancer will have a significant response to this drug. Now it sounds low. But unfortunately, for women who have recurrent ovarian cancer, the single agent response rates of non-platinum-based chemotherapy are pretty comparable. In some instances, they're actually zero percent. So, 8% doesn't sound high, and it's not, but it is seemingly comparable to chemotherapy in this single arm trial. So, this was not a randomized study, where we randomized pembrolizumab to chemotherapy, but this was a single arm trial.