Trial reportJournal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology2020
Pembrolizumab or Placebo Plus Etoposide and Platinum as First-Line Therapy for Extensive-Stage Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Randomized, Double-Blind, Phase III KEYNOTE-604 Study.
Trial report in Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 489 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Phase 3 Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-controlled Trial of Pembrolizumab (MK-3475/SCH900475) in Combination With Etoposide/Platinum (Cisplatin or Carboplatin) for the First-line Treatment of Subjects With Extensive Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer (KEYNOTE-604)
A Phase II Clinical Trial of Iparomlimab and Tuvonralimab in Combination With Bevacizumab and Platinum-based Chemotherapy in Previously Untreated Patients With Extensive-stage Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Who cites it
489 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 740 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Real-World Safety of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review of Comparative Cohort Studies.Current oncology reports · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of first-line immunotherapy-related induction and maintenance therapy for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of immunotherapy or antiangiogenic agent-based treatment strategies versus chemotherapy as first-line treatment for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer: a network meta-analysis.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Risk and safety profile in checkpoint inhibitors on non-small-cel lung cancer: A systematic review.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy in patients with ES-SCLC: A systematic review and network meta-analysis of RCTs and RWSs.Thoracic cancer · 2024Pooled it
- The Optimal First-Line Therapy for Extensive-Stage Small-Cell Lung Cancer Based on Liver Metastasis Status: A Network Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.Cancer medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Which Is More Suitable for First-Line Treatment of Extensive-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer, PD-L1 Inhibitors Versus PD-1 Inhibitors? A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.The clinical respiratory journal · 2024Pooled it
- Efficacy and biomarker exploration of anlotinib plus penpulimab in second-line ES-SCLC: Results from the phase 2 ALTER-L041 trial.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Trial
- DNA hypomethylation identifying clinical benefit subgroup of small-cell lung cancer: multi-omics analysis of a phase II trial with durvalumab plus olaparib as maintenance therapy.Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · 2026Trial
- Durvalumab plus anlotinib versus durvalumab alone as maintenance treatment in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (DURABLE): a multicenter, randomized, phase II trial and biomarker analysis.Nature communications · 2026Trial
- NOTCH1 reverses immune suppression in small cell lung cancer through reactivation of STING.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2025Trial
- First-line serplulimab plus chemotherapy in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer: Updated results and biomarker analysis from the ASTRUM-005 randomized clinical trial.Cancer communications (London, England) · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Carboplatin, etoposide, atezolizumab, and bevacizumab in the first-line treatment of patients with extensive stage small-cell lung cancer: the GOIRC-01-2019 CeLEBrATE study.Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · 2025Trial
- Novel Combinations of Immunotherapies or DNA Damage Repair Inhibitors in Platinum-Refractory Extensive-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer: The Phase II BALTIC Study.Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research · 2024Trial
- Molecular classification and biomarkers of outcome with immunotherapy in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer: analyses of the CASPIAN phase 3 study.Molecular cancer · 2024Trial
- Application and mechanistic research of novel therapeutic strategies in cisplatin-resistant small cell lung cancer.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
429 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
21 authors at 16 institutions in 11 countries.
Funding
Abstract
purposePembrolizumab monotherapy has shown antitumor activity in patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). The randomized, double-blind, phase III KEYNOTE-604 study compared pembrolizumab plus etoposide and platinum (EP) with placebo plus EP for patients with previously untreated extensive-stage (ES) SCLC.
methodsEligible patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to pembrolizumab 200 mg once every 3 weeks or saline placebo for up to 35 cycles plus 4 cycles of EP. Primary end points were progression-free survival (PFS; RECIST version 1.1, blinded central review) and overall survival (OS) in the intention-to-treat population. Objective response rate (ORR) and duration of response were secondary end points. Prespecified efficacy boundaries were one-sided
resultsOf the 453 participants, 228 were randomly assigned to pembrolizumab plus EP and 225 to placebo plus EP. Pembrolizumab plus EP significantly improved PFS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.75; 95% CI, 0.61 to 0.91;
conclusionPembrolizumab plus EP significantly improved PFS compared with placebo plus EP as first-line therapy for patients with ES-SCLC. No unexpected toxicities were seen with pembrolizumab plus EP. These data support the benefit of pembrolizumab in ES-SCLC.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.