Pembrolizumab Elicits Long-Term Survival Benefit in Advanced Melanoma
Source: OncLive, August 2023
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated long-term survival benefit compared with ipilimumab (Yervoy) in patients with unresectable stage III/IV melanoma who received up to 1 prior systemic therapy, according to 7-year follow-up data from the phase 3 KEYNOTE-006 (NCT01866319) trial, which included some patients who transitioned to the phase 3 KEYNOTE-587 (NCT03486873) extension study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
At a median follow-up of 85.3 months (range, 0.03-90.8), the median overall survival (OS) among patients who received pembrolizumab (n = 556) was 32.7 months (95% CI, 24.5-41.6) compared with 15.9 months (95% CI, 13.3-22.0) for those treated with ipilimumab (n = 278; HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.58-0.83). The 7-year OS rates were 37.8% vs 25.3%, respectively. The median modified progression-free survival (PFS) was 9.4 months (95% CI, 6.7-11.6) in the pembrolizumab arm vs 3.8 months (95% CI, 2.9-4.3) in the ipilimumab arm, with 7-year PFS rates of 23.8% vs 13.3%, respectively.
In the pembrolizumab arm, the complete response (CR), partial response (PR), and stable disease (SD) rates were 16.7%, 34.4%, and 33.1%, respectively, and the 7-year OS rates from the time of best overall response were 85.2%, 61.8%, and 25.9%, respectively.