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Immunotherapy Advances in Urothelial Carcinoma

  • Genitourinary Cancers (N Agarwal, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Treatment Options in Oncology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 23 May 2019

This article has been updated

Opinion statement

Checkpoint inhibitors have monumentally transformed the treatment of metastatic urothelial carcinoma. While the efficacy and safety of the different agents are similar in platinum-refractory metastatic urothelial carcinoma, pembrolizumab is the only agent that was superior to chemotherapy in a randomized phase III trial. Pembrolizumab and atezolizumab are also approved as first-line therapies in cisplatin-ineligible metastatic urothelial carcinoma. Several immunotherapy trials are ongoing in non-metastatic setting to maximize responses upfront. Despite the promising responses with immunotherapy, majority of patients do not respond to monotherapy and combination approaches would be the path moving forward to maximize responses. In addition, novel therapies are needed for patients who progress on checkpoint inhibitors. There is still a lot to be done to better understand predictive biomarkers, optimal combination, and sequences to improve clinical outcomes in urothelial carcinoma.

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Change history

  • 23 May 2019

    In the original version of this article, which published in Current Treatment Options in Oncology, Volume 20, Issue 12, December 2018, the surname of the third author was captured incorrectly. The name shown above is correct.

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Author notes

  1. Travis Snyders and Lakshminarayanan Nandgoapal contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, USA

    Rohit K Jain MD, MPH

  2. University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Travis Snyders MD, Rohan Garje MD & Yousef Zakharia MD

  3. University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Lakshminarayanan Nandgoapal MD

  4. Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Shilpa Gupta MD

  5. Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation, Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota, 14-100 Phillips Wangensteen Bldg, MMC 480, 516 Delaware St SE, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Shilpa Gupta MD

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  1. Rohit K Jain MD, MPH
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Correspondence to Shilpa Gupta MD.

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Conflict of Interest

Rohit Jain declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Travis Snyders declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Lakshminarayanan Nandagopal declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Rohan Garje declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Yousef Zakharia has received compensation for participating on advisory boards for Pfizer, Novartis, Roche Diagnostics, Castle Biosciences, Exelixis, Eisai, Johnson & Johnson, and Amgen.

Shilpa Gupta has received research funding (paid to her institution) from Bristol-Myers Squibb; has received compensation for service on advisory boards from Exelixis, Janssen, ARMO, AstraZeneca, Merck, and Genentech; and has received compensation for service on speakers’ bureaus from Exelixis, Janssen, AstraZeneca, and Genentech.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Genitourinary Cancers

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Jain, R.K., Snyders, T., Nandgoapal, L. et al. Immunotherapy Advances in Urothelial Carcinoma. Curr. Treat. Options in Oncol. 19, 79 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-018-0598-x

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