One of medicine’s most enduring challenges is the quest for a more effective treatment for malignant mesothelioma, and Baylor College of Medicine and Duke University have built a reputation for their collaborative work in pursuit of that goal. Scientists from the esteemed institutions have recently announced another groundbreaking clinical trial that will gauge the impact of combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy, both before and after surgery, for patients diagnosed with resectable pleural mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma Trial Randomizes Patients to Two Treatment Arms
The mesothelioma study, which has begun recruiting and enrolling 52 participants across both institutions, has set a goal of improving recurrence-free survival rates for the rare, asbestos-related cancer, which currently has a five-year survival rate of less than 10 percent. Recent immunotherapy advances have extended the three-year mesothelioma survival, though still for only 23 percent of some patients.
Participants in the phase I/II study are being randomly assigned to receive either immunotherapy alone or a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy before surgical removal of their mesothelioma tumors. Dr. R. Taylor Ripley, professor of surgery and Meyer-DeBakey Chair in Investigative Research at Baylor’s David J. Sugarbaker Division of Thoracic Surgery, explained that patients undergo three cycles of treatment before surgery, followed by one year of post-surgical immunotherapy regardless of their pre-surgery treatment assignment.
Trial Tests Use and Timing of Immunotherapy and Chemotherapy Combinations
The mesothelioma trial will test the use of the immune checkpoint inhibitors durvalumab and tremelimumab, which activate the immune system against cancer, along with standard chemotherapy drugs cisplatin or carboplatin and pemetrexed for patients randomized to the combination therapy arm.
To be eligible, malignant pleural mesothelioma patients must be under consideration for surgical tumor removal and have never been treated with PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors, including durvalumab. The immunotherapy drugs will be administered intravenously three times prior to surgery at three-week intervals, with post-surgical immunotherapy continuing for up to 12 months—both durvalumab and tremelimumab for five cycles, then durvalumab alone for the remaining seven cycles.
If you or someone you love has malignant mesothelioma and you need information on this or other resources available to you, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net today at 1-800-692-8608.
