Combination of Pembrolizumab and Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Recurrent Metastatic Penile Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Case Study

Abstract

The prognosis for patients with penile squamous cell carcinoma metastatic to regional lymph nodes or distant sites remains poor with limited treatment options, especially after the failure of first-line chemotherapy. Clinical trials evaluating the use of checkpoint inhibitor therapy, or the use of checkpoint inhibitor therapy with stereotactic body radiation therapy for the treatment of metastatic penile squamous cell carcinoma, are currently unavailable. In this case report, we present a patient with relapsed advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma and an unknown (human papilloma virus) HPV status and borderline programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L)1 status who was treated with pembrolizumab and stereotactic body radiation therapy. This patient achieved a complete durable treatment response despite having genomic features of an immunologically “cold” tumor. This case highlights the importance of investigating more into the treatment of these tumors that lack genomic features that classically have been observed to be susceptible to treatment with immunotherapy or immunotherapy augmented with stereotactic body radiation therapy in solid tumors, particularly in metastatic penile squamous cell carcinoma.