A research team led by Professor Se Hoon Park from Department of Hematology and Oncology, Professor Seong Yong Park from Department of Pulmonary and Esophageal Surgery, and Professor Jae Myeong Noh from Department of Radiation Oncology at Samsung Medical Center recently published the results of a phase 2 clinical trial in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official journal of the International Lung Cancer Association.
The study investigated combination therapy using the immunotherapy drug Pembrolizumab in patients with locally advanced thymic epithelial tumors. Although most of the 40 patients had stage 4 or poor-prognosis thymic cancer, 57.5% experienced significant tumor shrinkage. Moreover, treatment showed inhibition of disease progression in 82.5% of patients. As tumor size decreased with treatment, 70% of patients became eligible for surgery. Among those who underwent surgery, 46.4% achieved a major pathologic. Among the surgical patients, the one-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate, which represents the percentage of patients whose cancer did not recur or worsen, was 87.9%. The median progression-free survival period was 49.3 months, indicating that the cancer remained controlled for roughly four years.
Professor Se Hoon Park stated, “This study is a single-group trial and requires further verification regarding safety, but it is meaningful because it can offer a chance for a complete cure to patients who cannot undergo surgery, especially those with thymic cancer.” He added, “We plan to conduct additional research on patients with thymic cancer in the future to demonstrate more precise clinical effects.”