On Nov. 12, 2024, a research team led by UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators has shown that that combining pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, with standard chemotherapy can improve treatment outcomes for patients with small cell bladder cancer and small cell/neuroendocrine prostate cancer.

The early-stage study showed that using pembrolizumab with chemotherapy resulted in 43% of patients having a partial or complete regression of disease, with 86% of patients with bladder cancer and 57% of those with small cell/neuroendocrine prostate cancer living two years. 

The researchers found that patients showed favorable responses using this treatment regimen. In bladder cancer group, only one out of seven patients experienced disease progression after a median follow up of almost three years. For the prostate cancer group, the median survival for patients with small cell/neuroendocrine prostate cancer in the trial reached 27 months, which is longer than expected compared to the historical average of just 7 to 9 months. The study was published in Cell Reports Medicine.