A Role for Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy in Liver Cancer?
— Two small trials demonstrate safety, activity of checkpoint inhibitors in perioperative setting
by Mike Bassett, Staff Writer, MedPage Today January 25, 2022
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A computer rendering of a liver with cancer.
Neoadjuvant immunotherapy appears to be feasible, safe, and active in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), according to results from two small studies.
In the first study, perioperative nivolumab (Opdivo) with or without ipilimumab (Yervoy) induced major pathological responses in nearly a third of patients who underwent surgery, reported Ahmed Omar Kaseb, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and colleagues.
While in the second study, investigators led by Thomas U. Marron, MD, PhD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, found that a short course of neoadjuvant cemiplimab (Libtayo) led to significant tumor necrosis in 20% of patients with resectable HCC, with every patient able to go on to surgery.
The phase II trials were published in Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
"Both studies provide somehow consistent results in terms of safety, efficacy, and tissue analyses," wrote Nicola Personeni, MD, and Lorenza Rimassa, MD, both of Humanitas University in Milan, Italy, in a commentary accompanying the studies. "Taken together, they suggest an acceptable safety profile of both therapies, since none of the patients enrolled had surgery cancelled due to adverse events [AEs], while a minimal fraction did not undergo surgery because of disease progression."
Personeni and Rimassa added that the results support further avenues of investigation into the use of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for HCC that "consider the most appropriate combinations of agents, the optimal therapy duration, and tailoring of subsequent postoperative therapy on the basis of risk factor stratification."作者: StephenW 时间: 2022-1-26 19:43