Benjamin Levy, MD

Benjamin Levy, MD, clinical director of Medical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital, discusses how the role of immunotherapy has evolved in the treatment landscape of lung cancer and where he sees this research headed in the future.

There are now 9 approvals for different immunotherapy agents for the treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer without a mutation, Levy says. It’s important to know that there are even patients experience long-term survival benefits with immunotherapy, much like targeted agents that have become available and are showing promise in this space.

Levy reflects on previous phase 1 data, in which the 5-year overall survival rate with nivolumab was 16%. The patients here received an average line of 3 prior therapies, and this demonstrates some of the early efficacy observed for this therapeutic approach.

The question is how to move this into earlier stages of disease. Immunotherapy is also appearing promising in the neoadjuvant setting, where patients receive the treatment prior to surgery, Levy says.

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Benjamin Levy, MD, discusses how the role of immunotherapy has evolved in the treatment landscape of lung cancer and where he sees this research headed in the future.

Immunotherapy Advances Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape

Ben Levy, MD, clinical director of Medical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital, discusses the mechanism of resistance such as the 

 solvent front mutation in patients who received crizotinib (Xalkori) for lung cancer with 

Levy says there are 2 drugs that target the 

 mutation. One is lorlatinib (Lorbrena), which has already been approved for patients with ALK-positive lung cancer. It showed a 30% to 40% response rate in crizotinib-refractory patients with 

The other drug is repotrectinib, which has not received any approvals yet. Levy explains that this agent is also specifically designed to overcome the 

 mutation. Data from the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting showed meaningful responses of about 40% in patients who were refractory to crizotinib as well as responses in the brain.

It important that contemporary diagnostics platforms such as an RNA and DNA next-generation sequencing platform are deployed in this setting to interrogate ROS1 in patients, according to Levy. For patients with 

-rearranged lung cancer, crizotinib and entrectinib (Rozlytrek) are approved treatments and have shown response rates of over 70% with a progression-free survival of about 19 months in competitive outcomes. Entrectinib also showed an intracranial response.

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Ben Levy, MD, discusses the mechanism of resistance such as the G2032R solvent front mutation in patients who received crizotinib for lung cancer with ROS1 fusions and how to treat them.

Benjamin Levy, MD | Authors

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Immunotherapy Advances Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape

Multiple Therapies Show Responses in Lung Cancer With ROS1 Fusions