Dr Lea Knez: RWE of immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors
On Wednesday, 27 November, a science lecture took place as part of the ASEF Speaker Series via the Zoom platform and live in the Prešeren Hall of the ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana. The lecture was entitled “RWE of immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors” and was delivered by Dr Lea Knez, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Ljubljana.
Dr. Lea Knez currently works as a consultant clinical pharmacist at the Golnik Clinic, where she is actively involved in the development of clinical pharmacy in Slovenia and internationally as a member of the multidisciplinary team at the Internal Oncology Unit. She has been involved in the introduction of new clinical pharmacy services in oncology and is currently the Chair of the Education Commission of the Slovenian Chamber of Pharmacy. She has received several awards for her research work at Slovenian and international meetings, including the Minařik Award of the Slovenian Pharmaceutical Society in 2015.
Dr Knez’s research aims to highlight the importance of real-world evidence and research on treatment outcomes, whether for the application of findings from clinical trials in everyday healthcare or in the introduction of new therapies and healthcare services. In her lecture, she presented a new treatment approach that allows the patient’s immune system to detect and destroy cancer cells.
During the event, the speaker talked in detail about immune checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy (ICI), which has significantly changed the systemic treatment of cancer. She detailed the effectiveness of ZIKT in the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer in routine clinical practice. She stressed the importance of taking into account the gap between data from clinical trials (RCT) and data from routine clinical practice (RWD).
She also highlighted the importance of monitoring the outcomes of ZIKT therapy, especially in view of the increasing number of ZIKT drugs and their unique mechanism of action. She touched on the effect of ZIKT immunotherapy in combination with different drugs, including antibiotics and drugs affecting the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) microbiota. She presented key issues of the impact on the immune system, such as the effect of the timing of exposure and the dose size of other drugs.
At the end of the lecture, the audience posed questions about the selection of the appropriate drugs for immunotherapy for each patient and the speed with which patients’ therapies are adapted to new research findings.
The event was moderated by Adrian Mladenić Grobelnik, ASEF Junior Fellow 2024. We would like to thank the speaker and moderator for an extremely informative and interesting lecture.
The event was organised with the support of the Slovenian Government Office for Slovenians Abroad and the Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth.