Dr. Palmbos on the use of chemoimmunotherapy in patients with bladder cancer

Phillip Palmbos, MD, PhD, assistant professor, University of Michigan Health, discusses the current state of chemoimmunotherapy use in patients with bladder cancer. Palmbos explains that sequential use of chemotherapy and immunotherapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer has emerged as an option following positive overall survival (OS) data from the phase 3 JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial (NCT02603432), which assessed maintenance avelumab (Bavencio) following frontline chemotherapy in this patient population. However, Palmbos says that combined chemoimmunotherapy still cannot be recommended because findings from the phase 3 IMvigor130 (NCT02807636) and KEYNOTE-361 (NCT02853305) trials did not demonstrate an OS benefit with simultaneous chemoimmunotherapy in patients with bladder cancer. Ongoing research is attempting to clarify the role of the treatment approach in this setting.