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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