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Pembrolizumab use in bladder cancer: a tale of two trials

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The treatment of patients with the PD1 inhibitor pembrolizumab yields benefit in the second-line metastatic urothelial cancer setting. Two new trials have studied pembrolizumab monotherapy in other patients with urothelial carcinoma: an open-label phase II trial has enrolled patients with high-risk BCG-refractory non-muscle-invasive disease, and a phase III trial has compared three first-line treatment options for patients with metastatic disease. However, these trials have shown conflicting results.

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Correspondence to Jeanny B. Aragon-Ching.

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Competing interests

J.B.A.-C. serves in the Speakers’ Bureau for Bristol-Myers Squibb and serves on the advisory board of Pfizer, Merck and EMD Serono.

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Aragon-Ching, J.B. Pembrolizumab use in bladder cancer: a tale of two trials. Nat Rev Urol 18, 577–578 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-021-00499-5

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