%0 Journal Article %T Nivolumab for chemorefractory oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma %A Chénard-Poirier, Maxime %A Smyth, Elizabeth C. %J Translational Cancer Research %D 2017 %B 2017 %9 %! Nivolumab for chemorefractory oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma %K %X Although immunotherapy has radically changed the treatment paradigm for a variety of tumours including melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma, until now it has been less successful in tumours of the gastrointestinal tract. In a recent report in Lancet Oncology , Kudo et al . described the results of the first trial assessing immune checkpoint blockade in OSCC patients (1). The study enrolled 65 Japanese patients with platinum and taxane refractory OSCC in a standard open-label phase II design, the primary endpoint of which was centrally assessed objective response rate (ORR). OSCC patients treated with nivolumab on the trial had an ORR of 17% [95% confidence interval (CI), 10–28%] by central radiological review. However, a further proportion of patients appeared to benefit from anti-PD-1 therapy but did not reach RECIST criteria for response; a reduction in overall tumour burden was observed in 45% of participants by the trial investigators. In keeping with many studies of immunotherapy, median progression-free survival (PFS) did not appear to be substantially improved by nivolumab (median PFS, 1.5 months; 95% CI, 1.4–2.8 months), however, median overall survival (OS) was promising for a chemorefractory patient population at 10.8 months (95% CI, 7.4–13.3 months). These results are potentially important because if validated in a randomised controlled trial, nivolumab could provide a new treatment option for advanced OSCC, a cancer for which very little evidence is available to guide clinical management. %U https://tcr.amegroups.org/article/view/16586 %P S1225-S1228 %@ 2219-6803