Indian experience with immunotherapy in sarcoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors: a retrospective study

Aim: To study the role of check point inhibitors (CPI) in sarcoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Materials & methods: Retrospective data of 15 patients diagnosed with advanced sarcoma or gastrointestinal stromal tumors and treated with CPI. Results: 3/14 patients (21.4%) responded to treatment with a disease control rate of 42.8% (6/14). After a median follow-up of 14 months (range: 2-24 months), 11 (73.3%) patients progressed, the median progression-free survival was 4 months (95% CI: 1.7-6.3) and median overall survival was 14 months (95% CI: 2.6-25.7). Only one patient experienced a grade IV adverse event. Conclusion: Our data represent the first real-world application of CPI in sarcoma from India. We believe that CPI should be further evaluated in clinical trials. Plain language summary Immunotherapy has led to durable responses in lung cancer and melanoma. Similarly, it is also being explored in sarcoma, a rare subtype of cancer, here we report data regarding immunotherapy in sarcoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors at our institute [1]. A total of 15 patients were treated and clinical benefit was noted in 40% patients with two patients having a durable response. Side effects of the treatment are tolerable with only one patient experiencing a serious side event as pneumonia. Hence, we believe that immunotherapy has a role in sarcoma and should be explored in future studies.