Researchers from the University of Texas-Southwest Medical Center compared the immunotherapy drug nivolumab with a commonly used chemotherapy drug and found that it improved overall survival with minimal adverse side effects for patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease continued to progress after first-line chemotherapy.
Nivolumab, produced by Bristol-Myers Squibb, works by inhibiting the cprogrammed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) pathway, which prevents the body’s immune system from targeting cancerous cells. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nivolumab in March of 2015 for the treatment of NSCLC and melanoma.
More than 500 patients with NSCLC were included in the study; 287 were treated with nivolumab, and 268 received the chemotherapy drug docetaxel. The 1-year survival rate for patients who received nivolumab was 51% versus 39% for patients who received docetaxel. Additionally, patients taking the immunotherapy drug had far fewer side effects. Most only reported fatigue, nausea, decreased appetite, and weakness –far less severe than the adverse events reported in the docetaxel group. However, a small number of participants treated with nivolumab did develop autoimmune toxicities affecting various organs.
Contributing author David Gerber, MD, Associate Professor at the UT Southwest Medical Center, said in a statement, “This clinical trial shows that people with lung cancer not only live longer when treated with the immunotherapy drug nivolumab but their quality of life is better and toxicities are fewer and less severe.”
