A  case report of pseudo-progression after pembrolizumab in metastatic gastric cancer and a review of immunotherapy in gastroesophageal tumors

In this report, we present the medical history of a  30-year-old male patient with HER2- and PD-L1-negative metastasized adenocarcinoma of the gastric cardia, who received three cycles of pembrolizumab (200  mg every 2 weeks) after the failure of the first-line (1L) treatment with docetaxel, cisplatin, 5‑fluorouracil (DCF). A restaging compu ted tomography (CT) scan for the chest and abdomen revealed an apparent progressive disease; therefore, the treatment was terminated. Five months after the termination of the treatment, a new CT scan demonstrated a spontaneous treatment response although no treatment was given during this time per iod, indicating pseudo-progression of the tumor in the first restaging after three cycles of pembrolizumab. This finding is apparently due to the long-term sustainable immunological effects of pembrolizumab. The current report will present this rare case in more detail and summarize the closed and o ngoing clinical trials of immunotherapy drugs in gastroesophageal cancer.
Source: Memo - Magazine of European Medical Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research