Here at FLASS, this week’s blog article again focuses on immunotherapy and mesothelioma.
Let us zone in on the recent work of Arnaud Scherpereel, MD, PhD.
Immunotherapy : A Knock Out Punch for Mesothelioma!?
He is the head of the Pulmonary and Thoracic Oncology Department at the University Hospital of Lille in Lille, France. Please consider this Part 2 of our coverage of the topic of Mesothelioma or MPM.
In our previous blog, we presented background information on mesothelioma or MPM. Consequently, you might want to read and/or review the symptoms and current treatment protocols in that article before proceeding to learn of the newest immunotherapy work, done by Dr. Scherpereel.
Also very important in our previous blog was the fact that, until now, MPM (Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma) patients have had little or no recourse for treatment after exhausting chemotherapy and/or aggressive surgery. Once diagnosed, most patients are told their life expectancy is 12-21 months. However, scientists who are working with immunotherapy hope to change these expectations in the near future.
Even after two rounds of chemotherapy, most patients relapsed into progressive mesothelioma within 6 months. Dr. Scherpereel’s recent work with immunotherapy drugs brings a new paradigm to treating mesothelioma, and especially to therapy for relapsed mesothelioma. We want our readers to realize that FLASS actively participates and supports drug trials and research. The recent studies in immunotherapy are giving new hope to mesothelioma patients and the doctors who treat them.
Immunotherapy Drugs for Mesothelioma In Phase 2 Trial: A Highly Hopeful Performance
FLASS took a look at the trial and investigated some special features of about this new treatment protocol involving immunotherapy drugs.
Teamwork: Immunologists, surgeons, and clinicians confer on test results.
1. The Patients: Dr. Scherpereel enrolled 125 patients in his trial, the largest study of its kind. All of them had been diagnosed with advanced MPM.
Likewise, all of them had taken 1-2 treatments of standard platinum-based chemotherapy. 80% of them were male and their median age was 72.
2. The Treatment: Researchers assigned treatment either with nivolumab alone or nivolumab with ipilimumab, until they saw cancer getting worse. They administered at least 3 cycles of either treatment to 70% of the assigned patients.
3. The Key Findings: The scientists concentrated on the first 108 patients in the treatment trial. They measured the DCR or “Disease Control Rate” on seemingly simple criteria: Did the cancer shrink or at least, was the growth arrested?
Results that Make a Difference with Immunotherapy
FLASS agrees that some remarkable results ensued. Take a look at the numbers:
1. Cancer shrunk or at least, did not grow among 44% of the patients who received nivolumab only.
2. 50% of the patients who received nivolumab with ipilimumab reflected no growth or shrank to some extent.
Now here’s the amazing part; Compare these figures with the normal DCR for previous drugs tested—a mere 30%.
Shrinkage of the tumors gave some patients even better news. “Tumors shrank in 17% of patients treated with nivolumab and 26% of those treated with nivolumab and ipilimumab.”
Mesothelioma Measures Life One Day at a Time
Immunotherapy gives patients hope.
According to the experts, only “About 40 percent of patients with mesothelioma survive the first year after diagnosis. That survival rate depends on many factors, including age, cancer stage, cancer type, race and gender.”
Likewise, FLASS wants you to be aware that the very nature of the mesothelioma makes a recurrence of the disease not only likely, but highly probable. This is because of the way it propagates.
This type of cancer spreads through the lining of lungs, the heart, the abdomen, and in fact, the thoracic cavity. The lining is called the pleura.
By definition, the pleura is a very thin, “serous membrane enveloping the lungs and lining the walls of the pulmonary cavities.” Hence, the name pleural mesothelioma, for the pleura.
Blocking The Progress of Mesothelioma
This fact makes the results of Dr. Scherpereel’s drug trials remarkable. Also, keep in mind that all 125 of the patients in the trial had already exhausted the resources of chemotherapy.
Immunotherapy brings new hope to cancer patients.
“After a mean follow-up of 10.4 months of the 125 patients, the median time until cancer worsened (progression-free survival) was 4 months with nivolumab alone and 5.6 months with nivolumab and ipilimumab.”
When you’re counting your life in days, 4 or 5 more months is a blessing, to be sure. For the Nivolumab group, the median overall survival was 10.4 months. In the nivolumab-with-ipilimumab group, more than 50% were still alive at the time of analysis. This speaks very well for immunotherapy as a treatment.
However, this is not the end of Dr. Scherpereel’s research story.
In Part Three of this topic, next week, we will answer more questions about it. For example, what are the side effects of these powerful immunotherapy drugs?
How did they affect the patients in the study? Likewise, wouldn’t you like to know, at a very basic level how this type of immunotherapy works?
Then, please, return to the FLASS blog next week to learn more about mesothelioma and the final conclusions of Dr. Scherpereel’s immunotherapy research.
