Dr. Gordon on Next Steps With Immunotherapy Research in Osteosarcoma

Nancy B. Gordon, MD, assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Center, discusses next steps for immunotherapy research in the field of osteosarcoma.

The next steps of this research, Gordon explains, will be to actually translate it to patients. One of the major things that researchers had to take into account, particularly in children, is that checkpoint inhibitors had to pass phase I studies in adults for then to be able to be implemented in children.

Immunotherapy will work most effectively for patients with minimal residual disease, she adds. Moreover, there have been other studies investigating not only checkpoint inhibitors alone, but also in combination with chemotherapy and other agents.

Next steps will also involve the best approach to create a clinical trial to allow pediatric patients to receive immunotherapy and what the benefit will be. However, it will be most effective in patients with relapsed disease where there is only minimal disease.