Keytruda news...

[witantric]

yahoo.com/news/mercks-keytr...

[swwags]

well that's just fricken depressing

[StayingOptimistic]

how significant is this ?

[swwags in reply to StayingOptimistic]

As a standalone drug, Ketruda is still an option and nothing has changed with regard to its efficacy as such. The trial goal was to determine if the combination of Ketruda and ADT improved OS. It does not.

[GAdrummer]

Merck's problem is that the Keytruda only works on <50% of the prostate cancers out there. They have yet to determine exactly what is the ideal candidate for this drug. My husband's prostate cancer did not fit the criterions they were using 4-5 years ago. His doctor begged Merck and finally got him slipped into a trial as chemo was killing him. It worked for him, now 3 years undetectable. I think that Merck should make it available to those men who have no other options left to try with the warnings of side effects and knowledge that the odds for success are low (something like 1 in 3 at best).

[witantric in reply to GAdrummer]

Agreed. So glad that your husband responded well. I personally feel drug companies are overly conservative. Sometimes if a patient has no options left, what is the harm. You heard the story about President Carter and Keytruda. Right?

[StayingOptimistic in reply to witantric]

no, I haven’t heard it.

[witantric in reply to StayingOptimistic]

His cancer (I think melanoma) had spread to his brain. He had a miraculous recovery on Keytruda. Complete remission! Immunotherapy works like magic on 30-40% of the patients, but we don't understand why it doesn't work on others More research is needed.

[DMohr011]

Keytruda worked for me and today I'm cancer free!

Quick. Knock on wood....so far, so good!

[witantric in reply to DMohr011]

That is fabulous. God bless!!

[rsgdmd]

The trial was on an unselected group of patients. Keytruda works best on men who have high TMB and high MSI. Only about 5% of prostate cancers have these.

[swwags in reply to rsgdmd]

thank you for this @rsgdmd . can you site your source please? I want to read more.

[rsgdmd in reply to swwags]

So, source for the unselected group as patients- that came from personal conversation with clinical director at Merck who was involved with trial. The high TMB, MSI-high comes from FDA approval. fda.gov/drugs/resources-inf...