Clinical Benefit of Pembrolizumab in Advanced Urothelial Cancer Patients in Real-Life Setting: An Efficacy and Safety Monocentric Study

Abstract

Background: Pembrolizumab is approved for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC) who progressed under platinum therapy. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in a cohort of real-life UC patients. Methods: This retrospective, observational study included advanced UC patients treated with pembrolizumab in a single institution in France. The co-primary endpoints were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) at 6 months. Secondary endpoints were objective response rate (ORR), duration of response (DOR), disease control rate (DCR) and safety. Results: 78 patients were included in the study. The median OS was 7.3 months (3.8–12.2). The estimated OS rate at 6 months was 61.5% (50.5–72.6). The median PFS was 3.1 months (1.4–7.2). The estimated PFS rate at 6 months was 42.3% (31.1–53.5). The best ORR was 35.9%. The mean DOR was 95.5 days. The DCR was 30.8%. The most common treatment-related adverse events (AEs) of any grade were fatigue (46.2%), diarrhea (11.5%), pruritus (10.3%) and nausea (9.0%). There were no grade 3 AEs that occurred with an incidence of 5% or more. Conclusion: Our results confirmed those of randomized clinical trials concerning the treatment with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced UC that progressed after platinum-based chemotherapy.

Keywords

• immune checkpoint inhibitors
• immunotherapy
• pembrolizumab
• programmed cell death 1 receptor
• urinary bladder neoplasms