Patrick Forde, MBBCh, co-director in the division of upper aerodigestive malignancies at Johns Hopkins, spoke with DocWire News at ASCO 2023 about updated data from the CheckMate 816 trial assessing nivolumab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The updated data assessed whether outcomes of these treatment options were impacted by receipt of subsequent surgery.
The study randomized 358 patients to receive chemotherapy with (n=149) or without (n=135) nivolumab. Nivolumab plus chemotherapy demonstrated long-term clinical benefit compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable NSCLC who underwent definitive surgery. For patients who did not undergo surgery, neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy was associated with a “numerically improved” time to death or distant metastasis.