Dr. Riedel on the Role of Immunotherapy in Uterine Sarcoma

Richard F. Riedel, MD, associate professor of medicine, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the emerging role of immunotherapy in uterine sarcoma.

There was a phase II study that was recently published recently from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute looking at the role of nivolumab (Opdivo) in uterine leiomyosarcoma. It was designed to be a two-stage study, but in the first stage only 12 patients were enrolled, and the median progression-free survival was less than 2 months. As a result, the second stage never enrolled.

Immunotherapy in sarcoma is being investigated in a number of different histologies, including leiomyosarcomas that are not uterine specific and soft tissue sarcomas, states Riedel. In the SARC028 study, which looked at pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the response rates for leiomyosarcomas were essentially 0%. However, it was a small cohort of patients—only 9 or 10 patients were enrolled on that cohort.

In a recently published study that looked at nivolumab with or without ipilimumab (Yervoy), there were responses in both uterine and nonuterine leiomyosarcomas, states Riedel. There are ongoing expansion cohorts trying to further identify whether there is a signal there or not, says Riedel.