Dr. Singh Discusses Study of Nivolumab in Patients With GIST

Arun S. Singh, MD, associate professor, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, discusses a phase II study of nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with metastatic unresectable gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) during the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Patients in this study were randomized to receive either nivolumab monotherapy, or nivolumab plus ipilimumab (Yervoy). Although this is a randomized trial, the arms are parallel—so the two therapeutic options are not being compared, Singh explains. The primary endpoint of this study is objective response rate of nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab by RECIST 1.1 criteria.

This patient population has very advanced disease, says Singh. Of the 14 patients evaluable, one-third have seen clinically meaningful benefits from these therapies, Singh adds. Median progression-free survival of the nivolumab arm was 8 weeks. In the combination arm, 20% of the patients had a partial response. Investigators concluded that durable responses and disease control were observed with these treatments in this heavily-pretreated poor prognosis population.

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