Addition of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab to standard of care for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma of the limb significantly improved disease-free survival, according to the results of the SU2C-SARC032 clinical trial led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, Duke University and Princess Margaret Cancer Center, University Health Network. The findings, published in The Lancet , establish pembrolizumab as a new option for patients with this disease. "Soft tissue sarcoma is a rare and complex disease with over 50 different subtypes, which makes it hard to study in large clinical trials," said lead author Yvonne Mowery, M.
D., Ph.D.
, associate professor of radiation oncology at Pitt and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. "Since we haven't made much progress in treating these patients for decades, it's really exciting that this trial shows pembrolizumab can improve outcomes beyond current standard of care for patients with locally advanced disease." Senior author David Kirsch, M.
D., Ph.D.
, leader of the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) Catalyst Research Team, which ran the clinical trial, and head of the Radiation Medicine Program at Princess Margaret Cancer Center at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, added, "This clinical trial is a major advance for patients with the kinds of sarcoma that were included in our study. "We found that immunotherapy can improve outcomes for patients with the most aggressive form of the disease, suggesting that furth.