Lancet Oncol. 2018 Sep 10. pii: S1470-2045(18)30579-5. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30579-5. [Epub ahead of print]
Camrelizumab for nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a new hope?
Kwong DLW1.
Author information
1
Department of Clinical Oncology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China. Electronic address: dlwkwong@hku.hk.
Author information
1
Department of Clinical Oncology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China. Electronic address: dlwkwong@hku.hk.
Wenfeng Fang and colleagues 1 report on two phase 1 studies of the programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibitor, camrelizumab (SHR-1210), as a treatment for patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The first trial tested camrelizumab monotherapy in 93 patients who received at least one previous line of treatment for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The second trial tested camrelizumab in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin as a first-line treatment in 23 treatment-naive patients with the same diagnosis. Both trials showed good safety profiles with no treatment-related deaths observed in patients treated with camrelizumab monotherapy or camrelizumab combined with chemotherapy. The more interesting findings are the preliminary antitumor activity of camrelizumab in both settings: 31 (34%; 95% CI 24–44) of 91 patients who received previous treatment achieved an overall response with camrelizumab monotherapy (two patients had a complete response) and 20 (91%; 77–97) of 22 patients with the combination of camrelizumab and chemotherapy as first-line treatment (one patient had a complete response). These results are the most promising so far reported for PD-1 inhibitors tested in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.