Merck said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead to use Keytruda to treat certain types of solid tumor cancers.
Merck said in a release that Keytruda (pembrolizumab), used to treat advanced skin cancer (melanoma), can now be used to treat patients with unresectable or metastatic, microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient solid tumors. The FDA has now extended the use of Keytruda to patients who have tumors that have continued to grow after having already been treated including those who have colorectal cancer that has also continued to grow after medical professionals tried to use fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin and irinotecan to fight the cancer, the release said.
“The FDA’s approval of this new indication for Keytruda further supports Merck’s commitment to helping people with difficult-to-treat cancers,” Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said in the release.
The release said the effectiveness of Keytruda in pediatric patients with MSI-H central nervous system cancers has not been established.
