The Council emphasizes that the drug can, on average, provide a seven-month longer life in combination with chemotherapy. And more patients are still alive after 18 months.
The cancer drug is already approved for the treatment of another type of patients with lung cancer.
So it is not a new and untested remedy.
Every year, 300 Danes are diagnosed with the variant of lung cancer that Keytruda is now recommended for.
After several rounds of assessment, the Danish Medicines Agency has now chosen to recommend the drug to several lung cancer patients for a period of two years.
Until now, the Danish recommendation has been limited to a subgroup of lung cancer patients.
However, there are still some uncertainties associated with using the drug and therefore the treatment with Keytruda for these lung cancer patients needs to be closely monitored.
This is what Steen Werner Hansen, who is chairman of the Danish Medicines Agency, says.
– We let the doubt benefit the patients because there are some studies that show that it can provide a survival benefit.
– At the same time as we give the treatment, we can see how long you are on the treatment and how long you survive. And then we can also observe serious side effects, he says.
According to the Danish Cancer Society, the recommendation will affect around 200 patients annually. The treatment is used and approved for lung cancer patients in large parts of Western Europe.
And it is incredibly important that the drug is now approved to treat more lung patients, says Jesper Fisker, director of the Danish Cancer Society.
– We are dealing with a group of patients with a disease that is so difficult to treat that there is really no alternative. Here the prognosis is very poor.
– In fact, you run an immediate risk of dying from your disease. And that means this preparation can give them seven months of extra survival. And it is fantastic to experience in a situation where the alternative is almost unbearable, he says.
Some lung cancer patients find that the body’s natural immune system is prevented from recognizing and fighting the cancer cells.
The remedy Keytruda has the ability to remove those obstacles so that the immune system can once again kill the cancer cells.