“Immunotherapy is a really powerful tool that we use in urothelial (bladder) cancer in all different disease states,” says Dr. Jeannie Hoffman-Censits, a medical oncologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Dr. Hoffman-Censits, who treats advanced bladder cancer, says patients can be considered for drugs like Pembrolizumab and Atezolizumab as a treatment option upfront if they are not a good candidate for chemotherapy or if they have tumor biomarkers that show that the tumor is PD-L1 positive.
Immunotherapy is also being used in the maintenance setting to help keep patients in remission. “Maintenance therapy has been FDA approved with a survival benefit and the drug that was used for maintenance therapy was Avelumab,” says Dr. Hoffman-Censits. “And so that we’re using already in clinical practice.”
Read MoreShe is hopeful immunotherapy that may benefit more patients in the future. “The discussions that we have surrounding urothelial (bladder) cancer today are just so different than what we had even five or 10 years ago,” says Dr. Hoffman-Censits. “I’m just so excited to be in the field. I’m excited for our patients and for the things to come in the next couple of years.”
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