Potential Role of Immunotherapy in the Treatment of Patients With Sarcoma

Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, professor of medicine, surgery, and immunology, director, University of Pittsburgh Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh, president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, discusses the potential role for immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with sarcoma.

In patients with sarcoma in the SARC028 trial, immunotherapy was found to be encouraging with promising responses but was not determined to be a "home run," Butterfield explains. However, this will lead to more PD-1/PD-L1—based studies, especially with combination regimens. This is where biomarkers will again become very important, as researchers will further explore blood cells, serum, and tumors for signals to have rationally directed combinations following this expansion cohort.

In SARC028, biomarker analyses from the number of patients who responded to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) will help investigators determine which combination regimens to move forward with, she adds.