Early Lung Cancer Responds to Preoperative Nivolumab

COPENHAGEN—In a phase I study reported at the 2016 congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) six out of 15 patients with resectable early non-small cell lung cancer had “major pathological regression” to neo-adjuvant immunotherapy with nivolumab—the anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibitor. All but one of the remaining patients had some tumor regression or maintained stable disease after the treatment.

Patrick Forde MD, Assistant Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University’s Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland discusses the study findings with the Audio Journal of Oncology’s Peter Goodwin and explains how the use of neoadjuvant nivolumab detected possible molecular markers that could indicate tumor sensitivity to the immunotherapy.

Paul Baas, PhD MD, a thoracic oncologist from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam adds his explanation of why this checkpoint inhibitor had superior tumor-suppressing effects to those of chemotherapy and discusses the potential promise of neoadjuvant checkpoint inhibitition for lung cancer management.