The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the drug Keytruda to treat the most common form of lung cancer. The FDA cleared this immunotherapy drug to treat patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumours express a protein called PD-L1, and whose disease has progressed after other treatments. The approval of Keytruda gives physicians the ability to target specific patients who may be most likely to benefit from this drug.

Keytruda was approved under FDA’s accelerated approval programme that provides earlier patient access to promising new drugs while the company conducts confirmatory clinical trials. The safety of Keytruda was tested on approximately 500 patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Effect of Smoking on Human Lungs

The response rate and duration of response for Keytruda were much greater than for drugs traditionally used to treat lung cancer. In the three-year clinical trial, the overall response rate (the percentage of people in whom tumours were substantially reduced in size) was 19 percent.

The most common side effects of Keytruda included fatigue, decreased appetite, shortness of breath or impaired breathing (dyspnea) and cough.