Keytruda resistance shown as a monotherapy in anal cancerJanuary 25, 2024 - In the phase II study, the ORR to pembrolizumab monotherapy was 9.4% and the median progression-free survival was 2.2 months.
Conclusions Pembrolizumab has durable efficacy in a rare subset of anal cancers. However, despite persistence of HPV infection, indicated by circulating HPV DNA, most advanced anal cancers have low numbers of tumor-associated CD8+PD-1+ T cells and are resistant to pembrolizumab.
https://jitc.bmj.com/content/12/1/e008436?rss=1
This study demonstrates that immune checkpoint inhibitors are relatively ineffective as a monotherapy and require combination with ONCY's oncolytic virus pelareorep to affect a favorable tumor microenvironment (TME) for the addition of checkpoint inhibitors and the enhancement of CD8 + PD-(L)1 + T cells for an effective anti-tumor response.
https://jitc.bmj.com/content/12/1/e008436?rss=1