Dr. Agarwala on the Significance of OS and Toxicity Results in CheckMate-067

Sanjiv S. Agarwala, MD, chief of medical oncology and hematology, St. Luke’s Cancer Center, professor of Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine, discusses whether the overall survival (OS) justifies the toxicities demonstrated in the CheckMate-067 trial for patients with melanoma.

According to Agarwala, the OS results of CheckMate-067 that were recently presented at the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting, was slightly better but not significant. Response rates and progression-free survival remain better; however, the toxicities were significantly higher.

The use of the combination needs to be selective based on these data, explains Agarwala. The most important decision facing a clinician regarding immunotherapy is whether to use monotherapy or combinations.

PD-L1 testing may be helpful to determine whether combinations or monotherapy will be more beneficial, states Agarwala. Additionally, there were 2 subsets of patients who might benefit more from combinations. Those subsets include patients with high-LDH levels and BRAF mutations.