The UK National Health Service (NHS) has introduced the new checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy dostarlimab (Jemperli) for women with advanced endometrial cancer.
This follows approval from the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and is anticipated to benefit between 150 and 200 eligible women annually.
Clinical trials indicated that combining dostarlimab with standard chemotherapy significantly delays disease progression compared to chemotherapy alone.
Dostarlimab has demonstrated efficacy in clinical trials, with 64% of subjects showing no cancer progression after one year of treatment.
This substantially increased from the 24% progression-free rate observed in people receiving only chemotherapy.
The NHS expedited this therapy through its Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), allowing patients to gain access swiftly while further results on long-term benefits are gathered.
Patients eligible for this treatment include those with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer that exhibits high microsatellite instability or mismatch repair deficiency, genetic profiles found in about a quarter of uterine cancers.
Dostarlimab is administered intravenously every three weeks along with six cycles of chemotherapy, followed by maintenance doses every six weeks for up to three years, depending on the patient's response.
The development follows the NHS rollout of a combination therapy for advanced uterine cancer, consisting of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and lenvatinib (Lenvima), post-chemotherapy.
NHS England Cancer Drugs Fund lead professor Peter Clark stated: “The rollout of this drug as a first-line treatment on the NHS is great news for patients living with this type of womb cancer – this new immunotherapy could offer hundreds of women the hope of precious extra time to live well before their cancer progresses.
“The NHS has fast-tracked this innovative treatment through the Cancer Drugs Fund, and we’re delighted that dostarlimab becomes the latest in a long list of cutting-edge treatments available on the NHS to help people with cancer live well with a better quality of life.”
