FDA expands use of pembrolizumab for NCSLC

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May 1, 2019—The Food and Drug Administration approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) for the first-line treatment of patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer who are not candidates for surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation or metastatic NSCLC. Patients’ tumors must have no EGFR or ALK genomic aberrations and express PD-L1 (tumor proportion score ≥1 percent) determined by an FDA-approved test. Pembrolizumab was previously approved as a single agent for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic NSCLC whose tumors express PD-L1 TPS ≥50 percent.