This marks the first time a drug has been approved for this indication in nearly 2 decades, and also makes nivolumab the first and only available immuno-oncology agent for this patient population.
The FDA based its decision on results from a cohort of the ongoing CheckMate-032 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01928394) phase 1/2 study, in which researchers are investigating nivolumab in patients with advanced or metastatic tumors who have failed and experienced disease progression after platinum-based chemotherapy. For this particular cohort, 109 patients with SCLC were treated with nivolumab 3 mg/kg every 2 weeks regardless of PD-L1 status. The first tumor assessment was performed 6 weeks after treatment initiation, then every 6 weeks for 6 months, then every 12 weeks thereafter.
Results showed that 13 (12%; 95% CI, 6.5-19.5) patients had a response to therapy according to a Blinded Independent Central Review; 12 (11%) patients had a partial response and 1 (0.9%) patient had a complete response. The median duration of response was 17.9 months (95% CI, 7.9-42.1) among responsive patients.