A Phase 3 clinical trial led by Mount Sinai researchers is the first to show that immunotherapy after surgery to remove bladder cancer can reduce the risk of relapse for patients at high risk for the cancer to return. deadly metastatic. results published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Nivolumab immunotherapy was used as adjunctive therapy, which is administered after surgery in the hope of maximizing its effectiveness.
The randomized trial, called “Checkmate 274,” showed that using nivolumab increased the chances of these patients staying cancer-free after surgery compared to patients receiving a placebo. The mean time before relapse almost doubled in patients who received nivolumab, which is a monoclonal antibody immune checkpoint inhibitor that harnesses the immune system to fight cancer.
Surgery that removes the bladder or kidney and ureter is currently the standard of care for patients with urothelial cancer who have entered the muscle or lymph nodes, although half of these patients later relapse with lethal metastatic cancer. Unfortunately for these patients, no consensus has emerged on post-surgery treatments that may reduce the risk of cancer recurrence.
“These results of the clinical trial promise to impact the standard treatment of patients with urothelial cancer of the kidney, ureter, or bladder, reducing the risk of metastatic recurrence after surgery,” said Matthew Galsky, MD, lead author of the study and director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, co-director of the Center of Excellence against Bladder Cancer, associate director of translational research and co-director of the clinical research program on cancer at the Tisch Cancer Institute of the Faculty of Medicine Icahn of Mount Sinai. “Almost 200,000 people die every year urothelial cancer all over the world, so advances like immunotherapy that are used in this way bring hope. ”
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Citation: Immunotherapy after Surgery Reduces Risk of Deadly Relapse in Advanced Bladder Cancer (2021, June 2) Retrieved June 2, 2021 at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-immunotherapy-surgery -deadly-relapse-advanced.html
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