Immunotherapy treatment has become one of the greatest sources of optimism for patients with cancers of all types, including mesothelioma. A group of international researchers recently released the findings of their study investigating combining one immunotherapy drug, pembrolizumab, with the gold standard chemotherapy treatment for the rare asbestos-related disease and found that it significantly improved patients’ overall survival.
Mesothelioma Study Published in Esteemed Medical Journal
Writing in the esteemed medical journal The Lancet, a group of international researchers from across Canada, Italy, and France collaborated on a study that combined pembrolizumab and platinum-pemetrexed to treat patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. The open-label phase 3 trial was administered at 51 hospitals on patients with previously untreated advanced pleural mesothelioma.
Between January 31, 2017 and September 4, 2020, 440 mesothelioma patients were randomly assigned to receive intravenous chemotherapy with pemetrexed either with or without the addition of intravenous pembrolizumab. The study’s primary endpoint was assessing overall survival and safety in both groups.
Mesothelioma Patients with Pembrolizumab Saw Extended Survival Time
According to the study’s authors, following up on the patients at a median of 16.2 months revealed that overall survival was significantly longer in patients who had been administered pembrolizumab, with that group having a median overall survival of 17.3 months compared to the median overall survival of 16.1 months for those who did not receive the immunotherapy treatment.
The study showed that 27% of patients in the pembrolizumab group suffered grade 3 or 4 adverse events, while the same was true of 15% of patients who received chemotherapy alone. More serious grade 5 adverse events affected two patients in the pembrolizumab group and one patient in the chemotherapy alone group. Overall, the researchers concluded that the treatment was well tolerated and significantly improved overall survival.
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net can help. Contact us today at 1-800-692-8608 to learn more.
