Improving responses to immunotherapy in metastatic pancreatic cancer
David Bing Zhen, MD, University of Washington Medicine, Seattle, WA, talks on improving responses to immunotherapy for patients with pancreatic cancer (PC). To date, combination therapies with immunotherapies, particularly with chemotherapy, has shown no efficacy in PC. However, prior studies have demonstrated small subsets of patients that appear to benefit. Nevertheless, knowledge on which biomarkers predict potential responses remains poor. Typical biomarkers including PD-L1 are poor biomarkers for predicting response in patients with PC. So, investigational work is currently looking at biomarkers such as CD8+ T-cell infiltration and T-cell clonality as prognostic biomarkers. Dr. Zhen describes a recent Phase II trial, COMABT (NCT02826486) that explored the combination of a CXR4 antagonist plus pembrolizumab and chemotherapy in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer (mPC) which demonstrated potentially very beneficial results in patients with refractory disease. At the University of Washington Medicine they are currently investigating the tumor microenvironment (TME) to aid in the utilization of these agents. This interview took place at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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