Dr. Socinski on Milestone of Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer

Mark A. Socinski, MD, executive medical director of the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, discusses the type of milestone that immunotherapy has had on the field of lung cancer.

2015 was a monumental year because the community saw the approval of 2 immunotherapy drugs, nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda)that replaced the former standard of care, which was docetaxel, in the second-line setting of advanced non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), Socinski says. In 201, the FDA approved the first PD-L1 inhibitor in the second-line setting, which was atezolizumab (Tecentriq).

Moreover, when pembrolizumab was administeed in patients with high levels of PD-L1 expression, there was a significant survival benefit in patients who were previously untreated. Now, in the past 18 months, there has been a transition from immunotherapy replacing the former standard therapy to being integrated into the first-line setting. This has been an exciting moment for the field, Socinski says.