Table 1.

Published studies that tested or reviewed activity of pembrolizumab in relapsed or refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier	Type	Title	Population	Outcome	Adverse events
NCT01953692	Phase Ib	Programmed death-1 blockade with pembrolizumab in patients with classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma after brentuximab vedotin failure49	31 relapsed or refractory cHL patients previously treated with BV and relapsed after; ineligible for or refused autologous SCT	ORR 65% (90% CI 48–79%); CR 16% (90% CI 7–31%); PR 48%; PFS 69% at 24 weeks and 46% at 52 weeks	Hypothyroidism (16%), diarrhea (16%), nausea (13%) and pneumonitis (10%); Grade 3 AEs in four patients. Two patients discontinued treatment due to AEs
NCT02453594	Phase II	Study of pembrolizumab (MK-3475) in participants with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma (MK-3475-087/KEYNOTE-087)53	210 patients with relapsed/refractory cHL who progressed or did not respond to either autologous SCT followed by BV (cohort 1), salvage chemotherapy followed by BV (cohort 2) or autologous SCT (cohort 3)	ORR 69.0% (95% CI 62.3–75.2%), CR 22.4% (95% CI 16.9–28.6%). ORRs were 73.9% for cohort 1, 64.2% for cohort 2, and 70.0% for cohort 3. 31 patients had a response ⩾6 months	Immune-mediated events in 28.6% of patients, most common AEs hypothyroidism (12.4%) and pyrexia (10.5%)
	Retrospective	Low-dose pembrolizumab for relapsed/refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma: high efficacy with minimal toxicity54	Five patients refractory to 1–6 therapy modalities. four of five patients had previously received BV	ORR 100%, CR 80% at median follow up of 18 months	Grade 1 diarrhea in 20%; grade 1 eczema (20%)

AEs, adverse events; BV, brentuximab vedotin; cHL, classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma; CI, confidence interval; CR, complete remission; ORR, overall response rate; PFS, progression-free survival; PR, partial response; SCT, stem-cell transplant.