20 Apr PD-L1 Status Can Not Be Used To Determine Immunotherapy Eligibility for Melanoma Treatment

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Michael Postow

Michael A. Postow, MD
Medical Oncologist
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSK)
Memorial Sloan Kettering

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Dr. Postow: Pembrolizumab has been shown to improve overall survival for patients with advanced melanoma compared to ipilimumab.  Patients with PD-L1 negative tumors still respond to pembrolizumab.  Responses to pembrolizumab were higher when patients had more PD-L1 in the tumor.

MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Dr. Postow: PD-L1 status cannot be used to select patients with melanoma to receive pembrolizumab vs. ipilimumab or even to be used to determine eligibility for immunotherapy in general.  PD-L1 “positivity” is a difficult definition and various cutoff points have been used in various studies to determine positivity.  We need more research to determine the significance of various cutoff definitions of “positive.”

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Dr. Postow: We need to study additional immunologic biomarkers, in addition to PD-L1, to see if they can improve our understanding of who responds to immunotherapy and why.

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Last Updated on April 21, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD