Dr. Brahmer on Impact of CheckMate-057 in NSCLC

Julie R. Brahmer, MD, interim director, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, associate professor of oncology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses how the CheckMate-057 trial could impact the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The CheckMate-057 trial demonstrated superiority for nivolumab over docetaxel in the second-line setting. Because this is one of the first immunotherapies to show an improvement in survival in NSCLC, Brahmer says nivolumab will likely affect the treatment paradigm of the disease.

Non-smokers, Brahmer adds, tend to have lower response rates compared with current or previous smokers. Response rates were nearly doubled in patients with a smoking history. This could potentially equate to mutational burden of tumors.

Brahmer hopes the next steps following these results include an FDA approval for use of nivolumab in NSCLC in this setting. Since not all patients respond to nivolumab, researchers are determining if the agent could be combined with other therapies to elicit more responses.