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Not eligible for Immunotherapy. Now what?
Lung Cancer | Last Active: May 22 5:00pm | Replies (58)Comment receiving replies
I found situations when Keytruda can be used. Many do not mention PD-L1. I think the below applies to my husband.
“KEYTRUDA is a prescription medicine used to treat a kind of lung cancer called non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
- It may be used with the chemotherapy medicines pemetrexed and a platinum as your first treatment when your lung cancer has spread (advanced NSCLC) and is a type called “nonsquamous” and your tumor does not have an abnormal “EGFR” or “ALK” gene. “
Here’s the link:
https://www.keytruda.com/keytruda-faq/
Replies to "I found situations when Keytruda can be used. Many do not mention PD-L1. I think the..."
Much is being learned as time goes on, that's a good thing! Research, and sometimes just trying something outside the traditional standard, can save lives.
Immunotherapies, like Keytruda, can be quite effective for some patients, but they are not able to treat all cancers. In general terms, immunotherapies treat cancer by training your own immune system to find and attack certain types of cancer cells.
One determiner of how well immunotherapy may work is a test called PDL-1. Generally, patients with a high PDL-1 will respond better to immunotherapy than those with a low PDL-1, because there is a good match between the type of cancer cells and the ability to train the immune systems to find those cells. The PDL-1 test would usually be performed when a biopsy is done.
Of course, like any treatment, immunotherapy can carry along with it some significant side effects.
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Thanks for this, I had seen this on their website, but I'm still a little bit confused... does this mean it can only be used in conjunction with a platinum-based chemotherapy and not just by itself?