Dr. Gadgeel on Updated KEYNOTE-189 Data in NSCLC

Shirish M. Gadgeel, MD, MBBS, professor, University of Michigan Medicine, discusses the updated results of the phase III KEYNOTE-189 trial in metastatic nonsquamous non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In the KEYNOTE-189 trial, patients were randomized to receive pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone. The median overall survival rate of patients with pembrolizumab added to chemotherapy was 22 months compared with 10.9 months for patients with chemotherapy alone.

At 2 years, 45.5% of patients who received pembrolizumab were alive compared with 29% of patients who received chemotherapy alone, showing a 16.5% improvement in survival with pembrolizumab. Progression-free survival was 9 months with pembrolizumab compared with 5 months for chemotherapy alone. These improvements were observed across all PD-L1 subsets, including patients whose tumor proportion score was 0. No additional safety signals were identified in this study, according to Gadgeel.