Long-Term Efficacy of Cemiplimab Encourages Flexibility When Treating NSCLC: Ana Baramidze, MD

Ana Baramidze, MD, head of the Department of Clinical Researches at the Todua Clinic in Tbilisi, Georgia, explained how the efficacy results of cemiplimab can provide flexibility in treatment options for those being treated for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity; captions are auto-generated.

Transcript

The 5-year probability of survival for patients who completed 2 years of cemiplimab was 56%. Did any specific characteristics distinguish these patients?

Of 312 patients [receiving] cemiplimab plus chemotherapy, 66 patients, or 21.2%, completed protocol-specified 2 years of cemiplimab treatment. And in this group, histology was split evenly: 50% of patients were squamous histology, and 50% were nonsquamous histology. And 21.2% had locally advanced cancer, and 78.8% had metastatic cancer. PD-L1 expression level split was 45.5% patients had PD-L1 expression level more than 50%, 33.3% had PD-L1 expression level between 1% and 49%, and 21.2 had PD-L1 expression level less than 1%. With these baseline characteristics in mind, it was remarkable to see 56% overall survival probability.

How should clinicians weigh cemiplimab plus chemotherapy vs other available checkpoint inhibitor combinations?

The 5-year results for cemiplimab plus chemotherapy presented at WCLC [World Conference on Lung Cancer] added breadth of long-term data for cemiplimab for advanced non–small cell lung cancer and included 5-year outcomes from the EMPOWER-Lung 1 trial that I presented at the last year’s WCLC confirming durable survival benefit as monotherapy. And collectively, these data underscore cemiplimab’s utility across the variety of patient types, both as a single agent and in combination with chemotherapy, and continue to support physicians’ increased flexibility in care and greater ability to personalize the treatment plans.