Camrelizumab Has Activity in Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma often respond to treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy such as gemcitabine plus cisplatin, but patients with recurrent or metastatic disease have few treatment options. Fang, Yang, Ma, and colleagues evaluated the anti–PD-1 antibody camrelizumab (SHR-1210) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma in two single-arm phase I trials. The first (monotherapy) trial treated 93 patients with recurrent or metastatic disease with camrelizumab monotherapy in a dose-escalation and expansion cohort. The second (combination) trial enrolled 23 patients with treatment-naïve nasopharyngeal carcinoma. These patients were treated with camrelizumab in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin. The primary endpoint of both trials was the safety and tolerability of the study treatment. Camrelizumab was well tolerated in the monotherapy trial, with 15 of 93 (16%) patients experiencing grade 3–4 adverse events, and 8 patients (9%) having treatment-related serious adverse events. Overall, 31 of the 91 evaluable patients (34%) achieved an overall response. In the camrelizumab combination trial, 20 of 23 (87%) patients experienced grade 3–4 adverse events, and two patients had treatment-related serious adverse events. Of the 22 evaluable patients, 20 (91%) achieved an overall response. Taken together, these trials indicate that camrelizumab is well tolerated and exhibits promising preliminary antitumor activity both as a monotherapy in patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma and in combination with platinum chemotherapy in patients with treatment-naïve nasopharyngeal carcinoma. These findings support further clinical investigation of camrelizumab in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Fang W, Yang Y, Ma Y, Hong S, Lin L, He X, et al. Camrelizumab (SHR-1210) alone or in combination with gemcitabine plus cisplatin for nasopharyngeal carcinoma: results from two single-arm, phase 1 trials. Lancet Oncol 2018;19:1338–50.

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