Nir Peled, MD, PhD, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel, discusses the updated efficacy and safety results of the Phase III KEYNOTE-189 trial (NCT02578680) of pemetrexed-platinum chemotherapy with or without pembrolizumab in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after 4 years of follow-up. Over 600 patients with untreated metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC were randomized 2:1 to receive intravenous pembrolizumab or placebo. The long-term follow-up data showed that the addition of pembrolizumab provided a significant benefit to progression-free survival and overall survival, compared with chemotherapy alone. The substantial prolongation was seen irrespective of PD-L1 expression. The findings continue to support those reported at earlier time points. This interview took place during the IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) virtual meeting 2021.
