The USFDA has given priority review and orphan drug designation to nivolumab for the first-line treatment of advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, esophageal adenocarcinoma, and gastroesophageal junction cancer in combination with certain types of chemotherapy. Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide, with a global five-year survival rate of 5%-10% in advanced stages. The majority of patients with GC are diagnosed at an advanced stage, limiting the choice of surgical intervention.
In such cases, chemotherapy remains the gold standard treatment with a median lifetime survival of less than a year. Cancer cells secrete proteins that protect them from immune T cell invasion . Nivolumab is a checkpoint inhibitor monoclonal antibody that binds to these protective proteins (PD-1 protein) on T-cells and inhibits its binding with the PD-L1 protein on cancer cells, allowing…
