In patients with metastatic bladder cancer, using immunotherapy immediately after chemotherapy treatment significantly slowed the progression of the cancer, according to results of a clinical trial led by Mount Sinai researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in April. The randomized Phase 2 trial tested this treatment in 108 patients.
The trial tested an immunotherapy known as pembrolizumab after patients were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy in one group of patients and used a placebo after the same type of chemotherapy in a second group. The time until the cancer progressed was approximately 60 percent longer for the pembrolizumab group compared with the control group.
"This trial, along with another recent study testing a similar approach, bolster the use of switch maintenance treatment, which will likely become a standard of care for metastatic urothelial cancer, a disease characterized by a paucity of advances in decades," said lead author Matthew Galsky, MD, Co-Director of the Center of Excellence for Bladder Cancer at Mount Sinai.
‘Switch maintenance immunotherapy, significantly slows the worsening of a type of bladder cancer called urothelial cancer.’
