Biomarkers for Immunotherapy in NSCLC
Edward B. Garon, MD, MS, University of California, Los Angeles, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, talks about biomarkers for immunotherapy use in patients with NSCLC.
Transcript:
Dr. Edward B. Garon: Hello, I'm Edward Garon, from the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA. I'm excited to have had the opportunity to give these talks at the meeting here in Long Beach, local for me, this year.
I had an opportunity to give a talk about biomarkers for immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer. This has been a controversial area over time, although I would argue, in many ways, less so, recently.
The approved biomarker that is relevant for lung cancer, to date, has been PD-L1 expression. I think that it is, in many ways, been a much-maligned biomarker.
Nonetheless, it really has persistently been able to show that it is a group of patients, particularly those who have PD-L1 expression of at least 50 percent in their cells that derive disproportionate benefit from PD-1 inhibitors.
The strongest data probably associated with pembrolizumab benefit, but also good data associated with other agents in class, as well. Tumor mutation burden, which was, in many respects, all the rage a year or two ago, has fallen aside a little bit.
There was really some negative data from the CheckMate 227 study about the ability for tumor mutation burden to predict for overall survival. Where tumor mutation burden will settle out as a predictor is still a little unclear.
There are also several interesting different biomarkers that people are looking at that maybe aren't quite ready for prime time yet, but are at least of scientific interest, and may someday be of clinical interest as well.
