Charleston Reporter

The Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center has developed an innovative form of combination immunotherapy for lung cancer that will be offered in clinical trials by the National Cancer Institute.

The new pembrolizumab + N-803 treatment is being advanced by Hollings researcher and MUSC Health oncologist Dr. John Wrangle, and will be available at Lung Cancer Master Protocol (Lung-MAP) locations across the nation.

Co-developed by Wrangle and Dr. Mark P. Rubenstein, the combination immunotherapy will be made available to hundreds of patients in the unmatched arm nationwide, which are patients with tumors where that do not have mutations targetable with a drug.

“There is a great need for treatment options in the unmatched arm, since most tumors do not have mutations that are targetable with a drug,” Wrangle said in a statement.

Launched in 2014, the Lung-MAP trial is designed specifically for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has continued to grow after initial treatments, which accounts for approximately 85% of all lung cancer diagnoses.

The combination immunotherapy treatment will be available in the Lung-MAP trial soon and is expected to remain available for 18 months. Hollings predicts that approximately 400-800 patients will sign up for the combination immunotherapy at clinical trial locations nationwide.