“Historically, more than half of people with earlier stages of non-small cell lung cancer that has been surgically removed will experience recurrence,” said Dr. Heather Wakelee, thoracic medical oncologist and professor of medicine at Stanford Medicine, president of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer and principal investigator for KEYNOTE-671. “Results showed that a pembrolizumab-based regimen before and after surgery significantly reduced the risk of recurrence, progression or death by 42 percent versus pre-operative chemotherapy, regardless of PD-L1 expression and with or without a pathological complete response. These event-free survival data are very encouraging and support the potential of this perioperative approach for patients with resectable stage II, IIIA or IIIB non-small cell lung cancer.”
