Immunotherapy in the Treatment of Localized Genitourinary Cancers

Moffitt Cancer Center urologists, Drs. Roger Li, Brandon Manley, Jad Chahoud and Philippe Spiess in the Department of Genitourinary Oncology, recently co-authored the publication, "Immunotherapy in the Treatment of Localized Genitourinary Cancers." The publication focuses on the therapeutic benefits of immunotherapy (IO) as observed not to be solely confined to patients with disseminated disease but also in select patients with localized and locally advanced genitourinary neoplasms.

The KEYNOTE-057 trial demonstrated the benefit of pembrolizumab monotherapy for treating high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer unresponsive to bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), resulting in recent US Food and Drug Administration approval. Furthermore, a current phase 3 trial (Checkmate274) demonstrated a disease-free survival benefit with the administration of adjuvant nivolumab vs placebo in muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma after radical cystectomy. In addition, the recent highly publicized phase 3 KEYNOTE 564 trial demonstrated a recurrence-free survival benefit of adjuvant pembrolizumab in patients with high-risk localized/locally advanced kidney cancer.

They concluded that the adoption and integration of IO in the management of localized genitourinary cancers exhibiting aggressive phenotypes are becoming an emerging therapeutic paradigm. As a result, they are likely to dramatically change the treatment strategies in the future.

Read the full publication.

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