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‹ Wed · 8 Apr 2026
Novel or significantly improved treatment

Anti-PD-1 antibody penpulimab plus chemotherapy for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a randomized, double-blind phase 3 study

Adding penpulimab to chemotherapy more than doubled disease progression time in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with manageable side effects.

This phase 3 trial demonstrated that adding the PD-1 inhibitor penpulimab to standard chemotherapy more than doubled the time before disease progression in patients with recurrent/metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The safety profile was acceptable with immune-related serious adverse events in only 4.1% of the penpulimab arm.

What the study was

Study design
Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled
Population
Recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients, first-line
Sample size
291
Category
Treatment Innovation
Maturity
Potentially Practice-Changing
Journal
Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy

Why it surfaced

Phase 3 RCT showing significant PFS benefit for a new PD-1 inhibitor in first-line NPC; HR 0.45 is highly clinically meaningful and could change standard of care.

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