Dr. Pecot Discusses T-VEC in Lung Cancer

Chad Pecot, MD, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC; Imlygic) in the treatment of patients with lung cancer.

T-VEC is genetically engineered from herpes to replicate preferentially inside cancer cells without giving the pathogenic disease. Pecot says that the idea is that it will lyce cancer cells once it replicates inside of them. It also produces a protein called GM-CSF, and what that will do is recruit a lot of immune cells to the tumor.

In lycing the tumor, T-VEC presents antigens from the tumor to the immune system, and secretes the protein GM-CSF in combination with immunotherapy. T-VEC plus immunotherapy has shown impressive response rates in melanoma, making the potential for the combination in lung cancer grow.