Summary
A study conducted by Penn Medicine researchers has shown that some patients with advanced lung cancer may benefit from a shorter duration of immunotherapy treatment, a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system fight cancer cells.
Over the past decade, the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer, helping many live longer lives and improving overall survival for the disease. However, an important question has remained unanswered: How long should a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who receives immunotherapy as part of their initial treatment, continue with treatment?
A new retrospective cohort study, published today in JAMA Oncology and presented at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (Abstract 9101) by researchers from Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, suggests that it’s reasonable to stop immunotherapy treatment at two years as long as their cancer hasn’t progressed. The researchers found no statistically significant difference in overall survival between patients who stopped treatment at two years and those who continued treatment indefinitely.
“We hope this data provides reassurance that stopping treatment at two years is a valid treatment strategy that does not seem to compromise overall survival, In the absence of definitive prospective data about the duration of therapy – which will take years to accumulate – our goal was to use real-world observational data to provide guidance on this important clinical question.” – Lova Sun, MD, an assistant professor of Hematology-Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania.
The appropriate length of treatment remains an open question because pivotal clinical trials have used different treatment durations, and as therapies have been approved and become widely available, many patients have continued therapy beyond the one to two years tested in clinical trials. The longer a patient continues treatment, the higher the health care costs become – both to the patient and to the health care system – and there is ongoing risk of immune-related side effects.
