Summary Background Patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma have a dismal prognosis and few treatment options after first-line chemotherapy. Responses to second-line treatment are uncommon. We ...assessed nivolumab, a fully human IgG4 PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor antibody, for safety and activity in patients with metastatic or surgically unresectable urothelial carcinoma whose disease progressed or recurred despite previous treatment with at least one platinum-based chemotherapy regimen. Methods In this multicentre, phase 2, single-arm study, patients aged 18 years or older with metastatic or surgically unresectable locally advanced urothelial carcinoma, measurable disease (according to Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors v1.1), Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance statuses of 0 or 1, and available tumour samples for biomarker analysis received nivolumab 3 mg/kg intravenously every 2 weeks until disease progression and clinical deterioration, unacceptable toxicity, or other protocol-defined reasons. The primary endpoint was overall objective response confirmed by blinded independent review committee in all treated patients and by tumour PD-L1 expression (≥5% and ≥1%). This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT02387996 , and is completed. Follow-up is still ongoing. Findings Between March 9, 2015, and Oct 16, 2015, 270 patients from 63 sites in 11 countries received nivolumab, and 265 were evaluated for activity. Median follow-up for overall survival was 7·00 months (IQR 2·96–8·77). Confirmed objective response was achieved in 52 (19·6%, 95% CI 15·0–24·9) of 265 patients. Confirmed objective response was achieved in 23 (28·4%, 95% CI 18·9–39·5) of the 81 patients with PD-L1 expression of 5% or greater, 29 (23·8%, 95% CI 16·5–32·3) of the 122 patients with PD-L1 expression of 1% or greater, and 23 (16·1%, 95% CI 10·5–23·1) of the 143 patients with PD-L1 expression of less than 1%. Grade 3–4 treatment-related adverse events occurred in 48 (18%) of 270 patients—most commonly grade 3 fatigue and diarrhoea, which each occurred in five patients. Three deaths were attributed to treatment (pneumonitis, acute respiratory failure, and cardiovascular failure). Interpretation Nivolumab monotherapy provided meaningful clinical benefit, irrespective of PD-L1 expression, and was associated with an acceptable safety profile in previously treated patients with metastatic or surgically unresectable urothelial carcinoma. Funding Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Summary Background First-line chemotherapy for patients with cisplatin-ineligible locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma is associated with short response duration, poor survival, and ...high toxicity. This study assessed atezolizumab (anti-programmed death-ligand 1 PD-L1) as treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer in cisplatin-ineligible patients. Methods For this single-arm, multicentre, phase 2 study, in 47 academic medical centres and community oncology practices in seven countries in North America and Europe, we recruited previously untreated patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who were cisplatin ineligible. Patients were given 1200 mg intravenous atezolizumab every 21 days until progression. The primary endpoint was independently confirmed objective response rate per Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 (central review), assessed in prespecified subgroups based on PD-L1 expression and in all patients. All participants who received one or more doses of atezolizumab were included in the primary and safety analyses. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT02108652. Findings Between June 9, 2014, and March 30, 2015, we enrolled 123 patients, of whom 119 received one or more doses of atezolizumab. At 17·2 months' median follow-up, the objective response rate was 23% (95% CI 16 to 31), the complete response rate was 9% (n=11), and 19 of 27 responses were ongoing. Median response duration was not reached. Responses occurred across all PD-L1 and poor prognostic factor subgroups. Median progression-free survival was 2·7 months (2·1 to 4·2). Median overall survival was 15·9 months (10·4 to not estimable). Tumour mutation load was associated with response. Treatment-related adverse events that occurred in 10% or more of patients were fatigue (36 30% patients), diarrhoea (14 12% patients), and pruritus (13 11% patients). One treatment-related death (sepsis) occurred. Nine (8%) patients had an adverse event leading to treatment discontinuation. Immune-mediated events occurred in 14 (12%) patients. Interpretation Atezolizumab showed encouraging durable response rates, survival, and tolerability, supporting its therapeutic use in untreated metastatic urothelial cancer. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche, Genentech.
Summary Background Patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma have few treatment options after failure of platinum-based chemotherapy. In this trial, we assessed treatment with atezolizumab, an ...engineered humanised immunoglobulin G1 monoclonal antibody that binds selectively to programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1), in this patient population. Methods For this multicentre, single-arm, two-cohort, phase 2 trial, patients (aged ≥18 years) with inoperable locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma whose disease had progressed after previous platinum-based chemotherapy were enrolled from 70 major academic medical centres and community oncology practices in Europe and North America. Key inclusion criteria for enrolment were Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, measurable disease defined by Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors version 1.1 (RECIST v1.1), adequate haematological and end-organ function, and no autoimmune disease or active infections. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumour specimens with sufficient viable tumour content were needed from all patients before enrolment. Patients received treatment with intravenous atezolizumab (1200 mg, given every 3 weeks). PD-L1 expression on tumour-infiltrating immune cells (ICs) was assessed prospectively by immunohistochemistry. The co-primary endpoints were the independent review facility-assessed objective response rate according to RECIST v1.1 and the investigator-assessed objective response rate according to immune-modified RECIST, analysed by intention to treat. A hierarchical testing procedure was used to assess whether the objective response rate was significantly higher than the historical control rate of 10% at an α level of 0·05. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT02108652. Findings Between May 13, 2014, and Nov 19, 2014, 486 patients were screened and 315 patients were enrolled into the study. Of these patients, 310 received atezolizumab treatment (five enrolled patients later did not meet eligibility criteria and were not dosed with study drug). The PD-L1 expression status on infiltrating immune cells (ICs) in the tumour microenvironment was defined by the percentage of PD-L1-positive immune cells: IC0 (<1%), IC1 (≥1% but <5%), and IC2/3 (≥5%). The primary analysis (data cutoff May 5, 2015) showed that compared with a historical control overall response rate of 10%, treatment with atezolizumab resulted in a significantly improved RECIST v1.1 objective response rate for each prespecified immune cell group (IC2/3: 27% 95% CI 19–37, p<0·0001; IC1/2/3: 18% 13–24, p=0·0004) and in all patients (15% 11–20, p=0·0058). With longer follow-up (data cutoff Sept 14, 2015), by independent review, objective response rates were 26% (95% CI 18–36) in the IC2/3 group, 18% (13–24) in the IC1/2/3 group, and 15% (11–19) overall in all 310 patients. With a median follow-up of 11·7 months (95% CI 11·4–12·2), ongoing responses were recorded in 38 (84%) of 45 responders. Exploratory analyses showed The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) subtypes and mutation load to be independently predictive for response to atezolizumab. Grade 3–4 treatment-related adverse events, of which fatigue was the most common (five patients 2%), occurred in 50 (16%) of 310 treated patients. Grade 3–4 immune-mediated adverse events occurred in 15 (5%) of 310 treated patients, with pneumonitis, increased aspartate aminotransferase, increased alanine aminotransferase, rash, and dyspnoea being the most common. No treatment-related deaths occurred during the study. Interpretation Atezolizumab showed durable activity and good tolerability in this patient population. Increased levels of PD-L1 expression on immune cells were associated with increased response. This report is the first to show the association of TCGA subtypes with response to immune checkpoint inhibition and to show the importance of mutation load as a biomarker of response to this class of agents in advanced urothelial carcinoma. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Summary Front-line platinum-based combination chemotherapy leads to high response rates but suboptimum overall survival for patients with advanced transitional-cell carcinoma of the urothelium. ...Bevacizumab is being assessed in combination with platinum-based first-line chemotherapy in a large phase 3 trial. Current second-line systemic therapies, including taxanes, yield disappointing outcomes. Vinflunine, a novel vinca alkaloid, showed some activity and was recently approved in Europe based on results of the first completed phase 3 trial in the second-line setting. Better understanding of molecular biology and the emergence of novel biological agents now offer the possibility of improved outcomes. Neoadjuvant therapy before cystectomy and consolidation therapy with biological agents after first-line therapy provide a framework for the development of new drugs. We propose that trials to approve new drugs target two separate populations; multicentre non-randomised phase 2 trials should include patients with chemotherapy-resistant disease progressing within 6 months of first-line therapy, and randomised trials might be appropriate for chemotherapy-sensitive disease progressing more than 6 months after first-line therapy. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to make therapeutic advances. This review discusses current second-line therapy and emerging drugs for advanced transitional-cell carcinoma.
Summary Background Survival for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer is highly variable. We assessed the effectiveness of a whole-blood RNA transcript-based model as a prognostic ...biomarker in castration-resistant prostate cancer. Methods Peripheral blood was prospectively collected from 62 men with castration-resistant prostate cancer on various treatment regimens who were enrolled in a training set at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA, USA) from August, 2006, to June, 2008, and from 140 patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer in a validation set from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY, USA) from August, 2006, to February, 2009. A panel of 168 inflammation-related and prostate cancer-related genes was assessed with optimised quantitative PCR to assess biomarkers predictive of survival. Findings A six-gene model (consisting of ABL2, SEMA4D, ITGAL , and C1QA, TIMP1, CDKN1A ) separated patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer into two risk groups: a low-risk group with a median survival of more than 34·9 months (median survival was not reached) and a high-risk group with a median survival of 7·8 months (95% CI 1·8–13·9; p<0·0001). The prognostic utility of the six-gene model was validated in an independent cohort. This model was associated with a significantly higher area under the curve compared with a clinicopathological model (0·90 95% CI 0·78–0·96 vs 0·65 0·52–0·78; p=0·0067). Interpretation Transcriptional profiling of whole blood yields crucial prognostic information about men with castration-resistant prostate cancer. The six-gene model suggests possible dysregulation of the immune system, a finding that warrants further study. Funding Source MDX.
Objective
To describe the natural history of untreated muscle‐invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and compare the oncological outcomes of treated and untreated patients.
Patients and Methods
We utilised a ...database encompassing all patients with newly diagnosed bladder cancer in Stockholm, Sweden between 1995 and 1996. The median follow‐up for survivors was 14.4 years. Overall, 538 patients were diagnosed with bladder cancer of whom 126 had clinically localised MIBC. Patients were divided into two groups: those who received radical cystectomy or radiation therapy, and those who did not receive any form of treatment. Multivariable Cox or competing‐risks regressions were adopted to predict metastasis, overall survival (OS), and cancer‐specific mortality (CSM), when appropriate. Analyses were adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, tumour stage, clinical N stage, and treatment.
Results
In all, 64 (51%) patients did not receive any definitive local treatment. In the untreated group, the median (interquartile range) age at diagnosis was 79 (63–83) vs 69 (63–74) years in the treated group (P < 0.001). Overall, 109 patients died during follow‐up. At 6 months after diagnosis, 38% of the untreated patients had developed metastatic disease and 41% had CSM. The 5‐year OS rate for untreated and treated patients was 5% (95% confidence interval CI 1, 12%) vs 48% (95% CI 36, 60%), respectively. Patients not receiving any treatment had a 5‐year cumulative incidence of CSM of 86% (95% CI 75, 94%) vs 48% (95% CI 36, 60%) for treated patients. Untreated patients had a higher risk of progression to metastatic disease (hazard ratio HR 2.40, 95% CI 1.28, 4.51; P = 0.006), death from any cause (HR 2.63, 95% CI 1.65, 4.19; P < 0.001) and CSM (subdistribution HR 2.02, 95% CI 1.24, 3.30; P = 0.004).
Conclusions
Untreated patients with MIBC are at very high risk of near‐term CSM. These findings may help balance the risks vs benefits of integrating curative intent therapy particularly in older patients with MIBC.
Hypophysitis is an increasingly recognized adverse effect of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy for malignancy. However, the mechanisms through which ICIs induce hypophysitis are largely ...unknown. We aim to describe 2 cases of ICI-mediated hypophysitis and perform autoantibody profiling on serial samples from these patients to determine if common autoantibodies could be identified.
We describe 2 cases of patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who received ICI therapy and subsequently developed severe fatigue, prompting a hormonal workup consistent with hypopituitarism. Patient 1 received the ICI ipilimumab (anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4) and patient 2 received the ICI pembrolizumab (anti-programmed cell death protein 1). Both patients had serial seromic immune biomarker profiling using high-density protein arrays before and after developing hypophysitis. Once a common autoantibody was found, zinc finger CCHC-type containing 8 (ZCCHC8), we used immunohistochemistry to assess its presence in pituitary tissue.
Of a limited number of increased autoantibodies detected, those to ZCCHC8 were the only common antibodies to increase at least 3-fold post-hypophysitis in both patients. Using immunohistochemistry staining, we show for the first time that ZCCHC8 is expressed in pituitary gland tissue.
Seromic profiling identified a common autoantibody, ZCCHC8, in 2 patients who developed hypophysitis on ICI therapy, and other serial autoantibody increases in each patient. These findings warrant validation in other cohorts to determine if the response is to self or tumor antigen, and may reveal novel insights into pituitary gland physiology and the pathogenesis of ICI-mediated hypophysitis.
To define dominant molecular and cellular features associated with PD-1/PD-L1 blockade resistance in metastatic urothelial cancer.
We pursued an unbiased approach using bulk RNA sequencing data from ...two clinical trials to discover (IMvigor 210) and validate (CheckMate 275) pretreatment molecular features associated with resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade in metastatic urothelial cancer. We then generated single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from muscle-invasive bladder cancer specimens to dissect the cellular composition underlying the identified gene signatures.
We identified an adaptive immune response gene signature associated with response and a protumorigenic inflammation gene signature associated with resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade. The adaptive immune response:protumorigenic inflammation signature expression ratio, coined the 2IR score, best correlated with clinical outcomes, and was externally validated. Mapping these bulk gene signatures onto scRNA-seq data uncovered their underlying cellular diversity, with prominent expression of the protumorigenic inflammation signature by myeloid phagocytic cells. However, heterogeneity in expression of adaptive immune and protumorigenic inflammation genes was observed among single myeloid phagocytic cells, quantified as the myeloid single cell immune:protumorigenic inflammation ratio (M
2IR) score. Single myeloid phagocytic cells with low M
2IR scores demonstrated upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines and downregulation of antigen presentation genes, were unrelated to M1 versus M2 polarization, and were enriched in pretreatment blood samples from patients with PD-L1 blockade-resistant metastatic urothelial cancer.
The balance of adaptive immunity and protumorigenic inflammation in individual tumor microenvironments is associated with PD-1/PD-L1 resistance in urothelial cancer with the latter linked to a proinflammatory cellular state of myeloid phagocytic cells detectable in tumor and blood.
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We evaluated the impact of the number of cycles of platinum based, first line chemotherapy (fewer than 6 cycles vs the conventional 6 cycles or more) on the survival of patients with metastatic ...urothelial carcinoma.
We used the RISC (Retrospective International Study of Invasive/Advanced Cancer of the Urothelium) database. The association of the number of cycles of chemotherapy with overall survival was investigated by Cox multiple regression analysis after controlling for recognized prognostic factors. We excluded patients who received fewer than 3 or more than 9 platinum chemotherapy cycles to reduce confounding factors. The primary analysis was a comparison of overall survival for 3 to 5 vs 6 to 9 cycles using 6-month landmark analysis when 281 death events were observed.
Of the 1,020 patients in the RISC 472 received cisplatin or carboplatin, of whom 338 and 134, respectively, were evaluable. A total of 157 patients received 3 to 5 cycles (median 4) and 315 received 6 to 9 cycles (median 6). There was no significant difference in overall survival between 3 to 5 and 6 to 9 cycles (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.78–1.33, p = 0.91). No significant interactions were observed for the type of platinum (p = 0.09) and completed planned chemotherapy (p = 0.56). The limitations of a hypothesis generating, retrospective analysis applied.
Four cycles of platinum based, first line chemotherapy appeared adequate and did not significantly compromise the survival of patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma. The omission of excessive cycles may avoid unnecessary cumulative toxicity and facilitate a better transition to second line therapy and investigational switch maintenance therapy strategies. These results require prospective validation but they may impact practice in select patients.
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