Trial results for pembrolizumab in patients with PD-L1 diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) were posted on ClinicalTrials.gov on 2026-02-20. The study, NCT03990961, reported an overall response rate (ORR) of 80 percentage of participants in patients with relapsed/refractory disease.

Background

The study investigated pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, for its efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who have PD-L1 genetic alterations. This specific patient population represents a challenging area in lymphoma treatment.

Trial design

The study NCT03990961 was a Phase 2, non-randomized, unblinded, open-label trial. It enrolled 5 participants diagnosed with relapsed/refractory Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma with PD-L1 genetic alterations. The trial investigated the efficacy of pembrolizumab as an intervention in this patient population.

Key results

The trial reported several key outcome measurements for the pembrolizumab treatment group:

What this means

The results from this Phase 2 study suggest that pembrolizumab may elicit responses in patients with relapsed/refractory PD-L1 Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, with an observed overall response rate of 80 percentage of participants. However, the trial's small enrollment of 5 participants and the median duration of response of 2.76 months, alongside a median progression-free survival of 3.73 months, indicate that further investigation in larger cohorts would be necessary to fully understand the drug's long-term efficacy and safety profile in this specific patient population.

Source

The information for these trial results was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a public database of clinical studies. The results for study NCT03990961, titled "Pembrolizumab for Patients With PD-L1 Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL)," were posted on 2026-02-20 on clinicaltrials.gov.