[Correspondence] Why is survival after pembrolizumab affected by previous radiotherapy? – Authors' reply

We thank Farkhad Manapov and colleagues for their thoughtful commentary. Major limitations of our study include the absence of detailed information regarding the type, schedule, and dose of the delivered radiotherapy.1 Manapov and colleagues suggested that ablative radiotherapy might be a more potent stimulus for the immune system, and that definitive radiotherapy would correspond more to ablative rather than palliative radiotherapy. This might indeed be true; however, most patients in this study (64%) received radiotherapy with a palliative intent.

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