Thomas Powles, MBBS, MRCP, MD from the Barts Cancer Institute, London, UK talks about the role of PD-L1 biomarkers in immunotherapy for urothelial bladder cancer. The field of bladder cancer is becoming increasingly complex, with five drugs targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, and five distinct diagnostic programmes based on different antibodies and different methods of selection and analysis. Prof. Powles describes how PD-L1 biomarkers may have a prognostic rather than a predictive role in the treatment of urothelial bladder cancer. He also talks about the potential correlation with cell cycle and DNA repair genes and explains how these findings may impact the interpretation of high response rates in clinical trials.
Recorded at the American Society of Oncology (ASCO) 2017 Annual Meeting held in Chicago, IL