Dr. Balar Discusses KEYNOTE-057 Study in NMIBC

Arjun V. Balar, MD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, director, Genitourinary Medical Oncology Program, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses findings from the KEYNOTE-057 trial presented at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

For the trial, investigators evaluated the use of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with high-risk non—muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) who previously received Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), an intravesical immunotherapy, and became unresponsive to the treatment. Balar presented data from cohort A of the trial, which was comprised of 102 patients with carcinoma in situ with or without papillary disease.

At a median follow-up of approximately 16 months, complete response rate in the bladder with the PD-1 inhibitor was 40%, Balar says. In addition, median duration of response at the time of presentation was approximately 12.5 months. Further, about 53% of patients will have complete responses lasting 9 months or longer, says Balar. Although these are encouraging data, he adds, longer follow-up data will be necessary.