Clinical Profile and Results in Cancers Treated with Nivolumab: A Single Centre Study

Abstract

Introduction: Immunotherapy is also called as biologic therapy or bio-therapy. Immunotherapy is quickly becoming an important component in the multipronged approaches being developed to treat certain forms of cancer. The goal of immunotherapy is to strengthen the body’s own natu-ral ability to combat cancer by enhancing the effectiveness of the immune system. This study tries to compile response rates and side effect profile of Nivolumab. Methods: Patients with performance status of 3 or less than 3, who failed on 2 or more lines of therapy except melanoma and have received minimum 3 cycles of Nivolumab were taken in to this study. Study subjects followed for minimum of 3 cycles for assessment. Each patient received 240 mg of Nivolumab once in 15 days for 3 - 6 cycles. Results: The median age of 20 patients was 53 years (26 - 79 yrs). 18 patients were male and 2 patients were female. Progressive disease (PD) was observed in 12 patients with immunotherapy treatment and partial response (PR) was observed in 3 patients, and stable disease (SD) in 5 patients. Conclusion: This is one of the Indian study mainly reporting experiences with Nivolumab. Large sample size is required to conclude about the efficacy of the study. Nivolumab is more tolerated in Indian patients compared to other reported studies.