Opdivo Authorised for Pre Surgery Treatment of Lung Cancer

It has been revealed by Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) that Opdivo has been authorised in conjunction with chemotherapy by the US FDA. The treatment will be administered to patients once in three weeks for three cycles. This is solely applicable for adults with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that can be removed by surgery.

Looking at the statistics for solely chemotherapy vs with the addition of Opdivo, there was a substantial positive impact of event free survival rate. When administered prior to surgery, the chance of progression, relapse, and death was reduced by 37%.

Lung cancer is the largest contributor to cancer mortality in the United States. Surgery is the go-to treatment option for this type of lung cancer; however, the chance of recurrence is still between 30-55%.

CheckMate -816 researcher, Mark Awad, expressed that “Given the rates of disease recurrence in patients with resectable NSCLC, additional treatment options are needed to help improve the chance of successful surgical treatment and reducing the risk of cancer returning. The approval of nivolumab with platinum-doublet chemotherapy enables us to use immunotherapy and chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment for patients before surgery.”