https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30125216
Impact of Baseline Steroids on Efficacy of Programmed Cell Death-1 and Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Blockade in Patients With Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer
http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(18)30666-1/fulltext (summary of study published in the Lancet)
"Baseline
corticosteroid use was associated with
decreased overall response, and shorter
median progression-free survival and
overall survival in patients who received
the equivalent to 10 mg prednisone or
more per day at the start of the PD-L1
blockade."
10 mg of prednisone is equivalent to only 1.6 mg of dexamethasone.
http://clincalc.com/corticosteroids/
Thanks for posting this link, Stephen. I've recently been reviewing all posts tagged "dexamethasone" to try and educate myself more about steroids. My brother is intent on getting off of them and has now gone down to 6mg/day. He's also doing his first round of Avastin infusions.
ReplyDeleteI've seen others post about Celebrex, which James is not doing, and wonder if that could eventually replace steroids for him...
He'd been put back on 12mg/day due to severe symptoms.
Since this study focuses on lung cancer, are the implications the same for GBM? From *most everything I've been reading about Dex here on the blog, it doesn't seem like anyone wants to remain on this drug long-term.