Keytruda before and after lung cancer surgery cuts relapse risk by 42%, but doesn’t improve survival: #ASCO23
CHICAGO — Merck has found partial success with its latest effort to more aggressively treat earlier stages of lung cancer.
On Saturday the pharma giant announced results from a large trial in which patients received Merck’s immunotherapy Keytruda plus chemotherapy before surgeons removed their tumors, followed by another course of Keytruda afterward.
The Phase III study, called KEYNOTE-671, enrolled 800 people with the early stages of the most common kind of lung cancer: non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC. Everyone got chemo before surgery, and half also got Keytruda before and after. At two years, 62.4% of those who got Keytruda kept their cancer at bay, compared to 40.6% who got a placebo.
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