ASCO19: pembrolizumab as an alternative to chemotherapy for treatment of gastric and gastroesophageal cancers
The KEYNOTE-062 Phase III trial has achieved its primary endpoint, finding that pembrolizumab showed clinically significant improvement in overall survival in patients with tumors expressing high levels of PD-L1.It is estimated that 27,510 cases of gastric cancer will be diagnosed in the USA in 2019 with 11,140 deaths from the diseases. Currently the fifth most frequently diagnosed cancer worldwide, incidence of gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancers continues to rise, though the reason behind this remains unclear. The immunotherapy treatment pembrolizumab was approved by the US FDA in 2017 for patients with gastric or GEJ cancers that were recurrent, locally...