Dr. Yoon on Immunotherapy in Gastric Cancer

Harry H. Yoon, MD, associate professor of oncology, Mayo Clinic, discusses the benefits demonstrated with nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with gastric cancer.

The degree of benefit for nivolumab is higher than what has been seen with other biologic agents and was well tolerated for patients with gastric cancer, explains Yoon.

Additionally, the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab showed a similar level of benefit or response in a single-arm phase II study as nivolumab, states Yoon. Now, there are 2 different agents targeting PD-1 showing similar efficacy. The FDA recently approved pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with PD-L1—positive recurrent or advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma who have received 2 or more lines of chemotherapy, including fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy, and, if appropriate, HER2/neu-targeted therapy.