Clinical Experience of Immunotherapy Treatment: Efficacy and Toxicity Analysis of the Compassionate Use Program of Nivolumab in Patients with Advanced Squamous Cell Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Ernst Späth-Schwalbe; Sebastian Thiel; Jürgen Fischer; Jürgen Alt; Daniel C. Christoph; Frank Griesinger; Sylke Kurz; W. Schütte; Frederik Krefting; Nadezda Basara; M Kimmich
- Source
- Oncology research and treatment. 42(5)
- Subject
- Oncology
Compassionate Use Trials
Male
Cancer Research
medicine.medical_specialty
Lung Neoplasms
medicine.medical_treatment
Medizin
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Antineoplastic Agents, Immunological
Internal medicine
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung
Medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Adverse effect
Lung cancer
Survival rate
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Clinical Trials as Topic
business.industry
Compassionate Use
Hematology
Immunotherapy
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Progression-Free Survival
Clinical trial
Nivolumab
030220 oncology & carcinogenesis
Toxicity
Female
business
- Language
- ISSN
- 2296-5262
Background: Anti-PD1 monoclonal antibody nivolumab is an approved therapy option for the treatment of advanced squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer (SQ-NSCLC) patients. Data outside clinical trials about therapy efficacy and safety in later therapy line treatments have rarely been described until now. Methods: We performed a retrospective data analysis of patients who were enrolled into the nivolumab Compassionate Use Program (CUP) in Germany. Sufficient clinical data of 40 patients were available for efficacy and safety analysis. Results: Overall, 47.5% of all treated patients were not affected by any adverse events (AEs); 17.5% of patients suffered from severe AEs. The 1-year survival rate was 61.3%. Estimated median progression-free survival (PFS) was 5.3 months. Patients who received nivolumab as third or later therapy line treatment (77.5%) achieved similar median PFS and 12-month overall survival rate of 52%. Conclusion: Our findings of immunotherapy treatment outside clinical trials support the results of studies in the past and confirm the efficacy and favorable toxicity profile of nivolumab treatment in advanced SQ-NSCLC patients. In addition, we can present some rarely described information about nivolumab treatment of heavily pretreated patients, which provides some evidence that immunotherapy could also be useful in later therapy lines.