Looking Beyond Clinical Trials for Mesothelioma Treatment

Clinical trial results should not always be the guiding force when a mesothelioma cancer patient and their medical team determine what therapy path to take, according to one recent study. A look at real-world populations might be just as important. A research team at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medicine has made the point with a retrospective, observational analysis of second-line treatment for pleural mesothelioma. The analysis came on the heels of a multicenter clinical trial from the European Thoracic Oncology Platform that evaluated the efficacy of pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an immunotherapy drug, when compared to chemotherapy in a second-line setting for mesothelioma. Despite high pretrial expectations, the use of pembrolizumab showed no survival advantage over the use of chemotherapy for mesothelioma in a second-line setting. Progression-free survival was only 2.5 months with pembrolizumab, compared to 3.4 months for chemotherapy. Median survival was 10.7 months and 12.4 months, respectively. “Obviously, there is a lot of excellent work being done in the clinical trial space, especially with a rare disease and novel therapies like this,” Dr. Roger Kim, lead study author at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com. “But it is really important to assess those same kind of treatments in real-world populations. That may be the biggest take-home message from our study.” Clinical Trials vs. Real-World ...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Clinical Trials/Research/Emerging Treatments Mesothelioma Source Type: news