Dr. Sonpavde on Ongoing Trials With Immunotherapy for Penile Cancer

Guru Sonpavde, MD, director of Bladder Cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses ongoing trials investigating immunotherapy for patients with penile cancer.

There are exciting trials investigating PD-1 inhibitors, explains Sonpavde. Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is being studied in the post-platinum setting in a phase II trial (NCT02837042). Once eligibility is confirmed, patients will start treatment cycles with pembrolizumab at 20 mg given intravenously on the first day of each cycle. Each cycle corresponds to a duration of 3 weeks.

The primary outcome of this trial is objective tumor response rate from baseline up to 2 years, progression-free survival, overall survival, and the safety profile.

Additionally, ipilimumab (Yervoy) is being studied in combination with nivolumab (Opdivo). This combination is being looked at in all rare cancers in a basket trial.