The United States-based pharmaceutical giant Merck has recently announced that its anti-PD1 therapy, Pembrolizumab, marketed as Keytruda, along with chemotherapy and external beam radiotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy, has shown promise in treating newly diagnosed patients with high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer, thereby meeting one of the primary endpoints of its trial.

In a media statement, the company informed the media that the trial's other primary goal, overall survival (OS), likewise showed a favourable trend for Keytruda with concurrent chemoradiotherapy compared to concurrent chemoradiotherapy alone; however, these overall survival data were not mature at the time of publication of this interim analysis as the overall survival follow-up is still underway.

Merck said that it will share the findings of the trial with regulatory authorities and will present them during an upcoming medical conference.

Commenting on the trial findings, vice president of global clinical development at Merck Research Laboratories, Dr Gursel Aktan, said, "The role of Keytruda is already established in certain patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer, and these results reinforce our research efforts in earlier stages of the disease where there is a greater potential for better outcomes."

"We are encouraged by these results that show treatment with Keytruda significantly improved progression-free survival for patients with newly diagnosed high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer," she added.

The United States-based pharmaceutical giant Merck has recently announced that its anti-PD1 therapy, Pembrolizumab, marketed as Keytruda, along with chemotherapy and external beam radiotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy, has shown promise in treating newly diagnosed patients with high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer, thereby meeting one of the primary endpoints of its trial.

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Prof. Domenica Lorusso, the study’s overall principal investigator, lead investigator for ENGOT, and associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Catholic University of Rome, said, "Patients with high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer often have a poor prognosis, with more than half of patients experiencing disease recurrence within two years. However, there have been limited new treatment advances for these patients beyond the current standard of care in the last 20 years."

"These results are very encouraging and support the use of pembrolizumab combined with the current standard of care in locally advanced cervical cancer to help address the need for new treatment options beyond chemoradiotherapy alone," she added.

According to the World Health Organisation, cervical cancer, caused by a prolonged viral infection, is the fourth most common cancer among women globally, with an estimated 604,000 new cases and 342,000 deaths in 2020.