On October 13, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration approved pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab, for patients with persistent, recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer whose tumours express PD-L1 (CPS ≥1), as determined by an FDA-approved test.

FDA also granted regular approval to pembrolizumab as a single agent for patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer with disease progression on or after chemotherapy whose tumours express PD-L1 (CPS ≥1) as determined by an FDA-approved test. In June 2018, FDA had granted accelerated approval to this indication with the companion diagnostic, PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx. 

KEYNOTE-826 (NCT03635567), a multicenter, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, examined pembrolizumab with paclitaxel and cisplatin or paclitaxel and carboplatin, with or without bevacizumab.

The trial enrolled 617 patients with persistent, recurrent, or first-line metastatic cervical cancer who had not been treated with chemotherapy. Patients were enrolled irrespective of PD-L1 expression status. Patients were randomised (1:1) to one of two treatment groups: pembrolizumab 200 mg plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab or placebo plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab.

Pembrolizumab was continued until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or 24 months of treatment. 

The main efficacy outcome measures were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) assessed by the investigator using RECIST v1.1, modified to follow a maximum of 10 target lesions and a maximum of 5 target lesions per organ.

Additional outcome measures were ORR and duration of response (DoR). For patients with tumors expressing PD-L1 (CPS ≥1, N=548), the median OS was not reached (95% CI: 19.8, NR) in the pembrolizumab arm and was 16.3 months (95% CI: 14.5, 19.4) in the placebo arm (HR 0.64; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.81; 1-sided p-value = 0.0001). Median PFS was 10.4 months (95% CI: 9.7, 12.3) in the pembrolizumab arm and 8.2 months (95% CI: 6.3, 8.5) in the placebo arm (HR 0.62; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.77; 1-sided p-value< 0.0001).

The objective response rates were 68% (95% CI: 62, 74) and 50% (95% CI: 44, 56) with median DoR of 18.0 and 10.4 months in the pembrolizumab and placebo arms, respectively. 

The most common adverse reactions (≥20%) in patients treated with pembrolizumab, chemotherapy, and bevacizumab were peripheral neuropathy, alopecia, anemia, fatigue/asthenia, nausea, neutropenia, diarrhea, hypertension, thrombocytopenia, constipation, arthralgia, vomiting, urinary tract infection, rash, leukopenia, hypothyroidism, and decreased appetite. 

The recommended pembrolizumab dose is 200 mg every 3 weeks or 400 mg every 6 weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or up to 24 months.

View full prescribing information for pembrolizumab here.

Source: FDA