Results from a large clinical trial show that treatment with an immunotherapy drug may nearly double the length of time people with high-risk, muscle-invasive bladder cancer are cancer-free following surgical removal of the bladder. Researchers found that postsurgical treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating at least 18 different cancers, was superior compared with observation. The study, led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is published in the New England Journal of Medicine .
"This study shows that pembrolizumab can offer patients another treatment option to help keep their disease from coming back," said lead investigator Andrea B. Apolo, M.D.
, of NIH's National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Cancer Research. "Extending the time that these patients are cancer-free makes a big difference in their quality of life." A diagnosis of muscle-invasive bladder cancer means the tumor in the bladder has invaded into and through the muscular layer of tissue that encases the bladder.
The standard treatment for this form of bladder cancer is to surgically remove the entire bladder. To improve the chances of successful surgery and of eliminating any cancer cells that may have already escaped from the tumor, patients are given cisplatin-based chemotherapy for a period before surgery, known as neoadjuvant therapy, or after surgery, known as adjuvant therapy . However, many people with musc.