“For patients with advanced and metastatic bladder cancer, the standard of care is platinum-based chemotherapy followed by maintenance therapy with the checkpoint inhibitor, Avelumab – particularly outside the U.S.,” says medical oncologist Jeannie Hoffman-Censits, M.D. 

Would it be helpful to add another chemo-therapy drug to the maintenance therapy? Hoffman-Censits recently led the International JAVELIN Bladder Medley study, which looked to answer this question. This phase II clinical trial tested Avelumab alone (monotherapy) compared to Avelumab plus Sacituzumab govitecan (SG), a targeted drug conjugate. The answer, the investigators found, is yes. At data cutoff, about 51 percent of patients in the avelumab plus SG group, and 27 percent of patients in the Avelumab monotherapy group were still receiving study treatment. Progression-free survival was over 11 months in the Avelumab plus SG group, versus less than four months in the monotherapy group. 

“Our findings showed a significant benefit in progression-free survival with the addition of Sacituzumab chemotherapy to Avelumab maintenance,” says Hoffman-Censits. She presented the interim analysis of this study at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in the spring of 2025 and was lead author of the corresponding publication in Annals of Oncology.