Dr. Bellmunt on Immunotherapy Combination Trials in Bladder Cancer

Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, director, Bladder Cancer Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses trials investigating combinations with immunotherapy for patients with bladder cancer.

There are several other trials combining targeted agents in the second-line setting. These trials are mainly phase II studies, but if there is a signal then perhaps they can jump to a phase III trial in the second-line setting, says Bellmunt.

Immunotherapy drugs are moving to different settings, such as frontline metastatic disease where there are a number of trials with combination immunotherapy agents compared with standard-of-care chemotherapy. Perhaps these trials can change the way that physicians are treating first-line patients with bladder cancer, says Bellmunt.