KEYTRUDA

KEYTRUDA  is a prescription medicine used to treat: a kind of skin cancer called melanoma. … It may be used in adults and children 12 years of age and older with  Pembrolizumab is a type of immunotherapy. It stimulates the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells. Pembrolizumab targets and blocks a protein called PD-1 on the surface of certain immune cells called T-cells. Blocking PD-1 triggers the T-cells to find and kill cancer cells.

Keytruda, is a humanized antibody used in cancer immunotherapy that treats melanoma, lung cancer, head and neck cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma, stomach cancer, cervical cancer, and certain types of breast cancer.[5][7][8][9] It is given by slow injection into a vein.[8]

Common side effects include fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, decreased appetite, itchy skin (pruritus), diarrhea, nausea, rash, fever (pyrexia), cough, difficulty breathing (dyspnea), constipation, pain, and abdominal pain.[10][8] It is an IgG4 isotype antibody that blocks a protective mechanism of cancer cells and thereby, allows the immune system to destroy them. It targets the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) receptor of lymphocytes. It works by targeting the cellular pathway of proteins found on the body’s immune cells and some cancer cells, known as PD-1/PD-L1.[10]

Pembrolizumab was approved for medical use in the United States in 2014.[8] In 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for any unresectable or metastatic solid tumor with certain genetic anomalies (mismatch repair deficiency or microsatellite instability).[11] It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essentia