Summary Background Results from clinical trials have established sunitinib as a standard of care for first-line treatment of advanced or metastatic renal-cell carcinoma (RCC); however, many patients, ...particularly those with a poorer prognosis, do not meet inclusion criteria and little is known about the activity of sunitinib in these subgroups. The primary objective of this trial was to provide sunitinib on a compassionate-use basis to trial-ineligible patients with RCC from countries where regulatory approval had not been granted. Methods Previously treated and treatment-naive patients at least 18 years of age with metastatic RCC were eligible. All patients received open-label sunitinib 50 mg orally once daily on schedule 4-2 (4 weeks on treatment, 2 weeks off). Safety was assessed regularly, tumour measurements done per local practice, and survival data collected where possible. Analyses were done in the modified intention-to-treat (ITT) population, which consisted of all patients who received at least one dose of sunitinib. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT00130897. Findings As of December, 2007, 4564 patients were enrolled in 52 countries. 4371 patients were included in the modified ITT population. This population included 321 (7%) patients with brain metastases, 582 (13%) with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of 2 or higher, 588 (13%) non-clear-cell RCC, and 1418 (32%) aged 65 years or more. Patients received a median of five treatment cycles (range 1–25). Reasons for discontinuation included lack of efficacy (n=1168 27%) and adverse events (n=362 8%). The most common treatment-related adverse events were diarrhoea (n=1936 44%) and fatigue (n=1606 37%). The most common grade 3–4 adverse events were fatigue (n=344 8%) and thrombocytopenia (n=338 8%) with incidences of grade 3–4 adverse events similar across subgroups. In 3464 evaluable patients, the objective response rate (ORR) was 17% (n=603), with subgroup ORR as follows: brain metastases (26 of 213 12%), ECOG performance status 2 or higher (29 of 319 9%), non-clear-cell RCC (48 of 437 11%) and age 65 years or more (176 of 1056 17%). Median progression-free survival was 10·9 months (95% CI 10·3–11·2) and overall survival was 18·4 months (17·4–19·2). Interpretation In a broad population of patients with metastatic RCC, the safety profile of sunitinib 50 mg once-daily (initial dose) on schedule 4-2 was manageable and efficacy results were encouraging, particularly in subgroups associated with poor prognosis who are not usually entered into clinical trials. Funding Pfizer Inc.
Summary Background Treatment with adjuvant trastuzumab for 1 year improves disease-free survival and overall survival in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early ...breast cancer. We aimed to assess disease-free survival and overall survival after a median follow-up of 4 years for patients enrolled on the Herceptin Adjuvant (HERA) trial. Methods The HERA trial is an international, multicentre, randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial comparing treatment with trastuzumab for 1 and 2 years with observation after standard neoadjuvant, adjuvant chemotherapy, or both in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer. The primary endpoint was disease-free survival. After a positive first interim analysis at a median follow-up of 1 year for the comparison of treatment with trastuzumab for 1 year with observation, event-free patients in the observation group were allowed to cross over to receive trastuzumab. We report trial outcomes for the 1-year trastuzumab and observation groups at a median follow-up of 48·4 months (IQR 42·0–56·5) and assess the effect of the extensive crossover to trastuzumab. Our analysis was by intention-to-treat. The HERA trial is registered with the European Clinical Trials Database, number 2005-002385-11. Findings The HERA trial population comprised 1698 patients randomly assigned to the observation group and 1703 to the 1-year trastuzumab group. Intention-to-treat analysis of disease-free survival showed a significant benefit in favour of patients in the 1-year trastuzumab group (4-year disease-free survival 78·6%) compared with the observation group (4-year disease-free survival 72·2%; hazard ratio HR 0·76; 95% CI 0·66–0·87; p<0·0001). Intention-to-treat analysis of overall survival showed no significant difference in the risk of death (4-year overall survival 89·3% vs 87·7%, respectively; HR 0·85; 95% CI 0·70–1·04; p=0·11). Overall, 885 patients (52%) of the 1698 patients in the observation group crossed over to receive trastuzumab, and began treatment at median 22·8 months (range 4·5–52·7) from randomisation. In a non-randomised comparison, patients in the selective-crossover cohort had fewer disease-free survival events than patients remaining in the observation group (adjusted HR 0·68; 95% CI 0·51–0·90; p=0·0077). Higher incidences of grade 3–4 and fatal adverse events were noted on 1-year trastuzumab than in the observation group. The most common grade 3 or 4 adverse events, each in less than 1% of patients, were congestive cardiac failure, hypertension, arthralgia, back pain, central-line infection, hot flush, headache, and diarrhoea. Interpretation Treatment with adjuvant trastuzumab for 1 year after chemotherapy is associated with significant clinical benefit at 4-year median follow-up. The substantial selective crossover of patients in the observation group to trastuzumab was associated with improved outcomes for this cohort. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche, Michelangelo Foundation.
Summary Background Combining bevacizumab with first-line or second-line chemotherapy improves progression-free survival in HER2-negative locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer. We assessed the ...efficacy and safety of further bevacizumab therapy in patients with locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer whose disease had progressed after treatment with bevacizumab plus chemotherapy. Methods In this open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial, we recruited patients who had HER2-negative locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer that had progressed after receiving 12 weeks or more of first-line bevacizumab plus chemotherapy from 118 centres in 12 countries. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) by use of a central interactive voice response system using a block randomisation schedule (block size four) stratified by hormone receptor status, first-line progression-free survival, selected chemotherapy, and lactate dehydrogenase concentration, to receive second-line single-agent chemotherapy either alone or with bevacizumab (15 mg/kg every 3 weeks or 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks). Second-line therapy was continued until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or consent withdrawal. At progression, patients randomly assigned to chemotherapy alone received third-line chemotherapy without bevacizumab; those randomly assigned to bevacizumab continued bevacizumab with third-line chemotherapy. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival from randomisation to second-line progression or death in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is ongoing, and registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT01250379. Findings Between Feb 17, 2011, and April 3, 2013, 494 patients were randomly assigned to treatment (247 in each group). The median duration of follow-up at the time of this prespecified primary progression-free survival analysis was 15·9 months (IQR 9·1–21·7) in the chemotherapy-alone group and 16·1 months (10·6–22·7) in the combination group. Progression-free survival was significantly longer for those patients treated with bevacizumab plus chemotherapy than for those with chemotherapy alone (median: 6·3 months 95% CI 5·4–7·2 vs 4·2 months 3·9–4·7, respectively, stratified hazard ratio HR 0·75 95% CI 0·61–0·93, two-sided stratified log-rank p=0·0068). The most common grade 3 or more adverse events were hypertension (33 13% of 245 patients receiving bevacizumab plus chemotherapy vs 17 7% of 238 patients receiving chemotherapy alone), neutropenia (29 12% vs 20 8%), and hand-foot syndrome (27 11% vs 25 11%). Grade 3 proteinuria occurred in 17 (7%) of 245 patients receiving combination therapy and one (<1%) of 238 patients receiving chemotherapy alone. Serious adverse events were reported in 61 (25%) of 245 patients receiving bevacizumab plus chemotherapy versus 44 (18%) of 238 patients receiving chemotherapy alone. Interpretation These results suggest that continued VEGF inhibition with further bevacizumab is a valid treatment option for patients with locally recurrent or metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer whose disease was stabilised or responded to first-line bevacizumab with chemotherapy. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche.
Breast cancer cells can express HER2 receptors on their membranes to varying degrees. HER2 signalling pathway is important for tumor growth and metastasis. Patients with HER2-positive disease had ...worse treatment outcomes until the implementation of trastuzumab started, followed by other anti-HER2 drugs. So far, they have been used exclusively for strong HER2 expression. The development of new drugs, primarily antibody-drug conjugates, has proven their efficacy on tumor cells that have lower levels of the HER2 receptors, today referred to as HER2-low tumors. Since the results of the DESTINY breast04 study showed a prolongation of progression free survival and overall survival in HER2-low pretreated patients, a new perspective opens up in the treatment, as well as in HER2 testing.
We sought to determine whether the combination of ixabepilone plus capecitabine improved overall survival (OS) compared with capecitabine alone in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) ...previously treated with anthracyclines and taxanes.
A total of 1,221 patients with MBC previously treated with anthracycline and taxanes were randomly assigned to ixabepilone (40 mg/m(2) intravenously on day 1) plus capecitabine (2,000 mg/m(2) orally on days 1 through 14) or capecitabine alone (2,500 mg/m(2) on the same schedule) given every 21 days. The trial was powered to detect a 20% reduction in the hazard ratio (HR) for death.
There was no significant difference in OS between the combination and capecitabine monotherapy arm, the primary end point (median, 16.4 v 15.6 months; HR = 0.9; 95% CI, 078 to 1.03; P = .1162). The arms were well balanced with the exception of a higher prevalence of impaired performance status (Karnofsky performance status 70% to 80%) in the combination arm (32% v 25%). In a secondary Cox regression analysis adjusted for performance status and other prognostic factors, OS was improved for the combination (HR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.75 to 0.98; P = .0231). In 79% of patients with measurable disease, the combination significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS; median, 6.2 v 4.2 months; HR = 0.79; P = .0005) and response rate (43% v 29%; P < .0001). Grade 3 to 4 neuropathy occurred in 24% treated with the combination, but was reversible.
This study confirmed a previous trial demonstrating improved PFS and response for the ixabepilone-capecitabine combination compared with capecitabine alone, although this did not result in improved survival.
Due to recent changes in breast cancer treatment strategy, significantly more patients are treated with neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST). Radiological methods do not precisely determine axillary ...lymph node status, with up to 30% of patients being misdiagnosed. Hence, supplementary methods for lymph node status assessment are needed. This study aimed to apply and evaluate machine learning models on clinicopathological data, with a focus on patients meeting NST criteria, for lymph node metastasis prediction.
From the total breast cancer patient data (
= 8381), 719 patients were identified as eligible for NST. Machine learning models were applied for the NST-criteria group and the total study population. Model explainability was obtained by calculating Shapley values.
In the NST-criteria group, random forest achieved the highest performance (AUC: 0.793 0.713, 0.865), while in the total study population, XGBoost performed the best (AUC: 0.762 0.726, 0.795). Shapley values identified tumor size, Ki-67, and patient age as the most important predictors.
Tree-based models achieve a good performance in assessing lymph node status. Such models can lead to more accurate disease stage prediction and consecutively better treatment selection, especially for NST patients where radiological and clinical findings are often the only way of lymph node assessment.
Laryngeal cancer is the second most common malignancy of the head and neck, worldwide. Immunotherapy targeting checkpoint inhibitors has been approved for the treatment of patients with recurrent or ...metastatic laryngeal cancer but has a relatively low response rate and outcomes that leave many patients underserved. Targeting the cGAS-STING signaling pathway can potentially improve the activation of immune effector cells, although its role in the development and progression of laryngeal cancer has not yet been investigated in depth. Fifty-nine tumor samples from patients with pathologically confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx, stage I-IV non-metastatic disease, who were treated at the University Hospital of Split, were immunohistochemically stained for the expression of STING, cGAS, CD8, CD68, and CD163. Elevated tumor cell-intrinsic STING expression was positively associated with stage IV (
= 0.0031), pT3, and pT4 laryngeal cancers (
= 0.0336) as well as with higher histological grades (G2 and G3) (
= 0.0204) and lymph node-positive tumors (
= 0.0371). After adjusting for age, sex, location, and cGAS expression, elevated STING expression was significantly associated with stage IV cancer in a multiple logistic regression model (β = 1.849, SE = ±0.8643,
= 0.0324). Elevated STING expression represents a potentially favorable predictive biomarker for new therapeutic approaches involving STING agonists combined with immunotherapy and DNA-damaging agents (radiotherapy, cisplatin, and PARP inhibitors) in laryngeal cancer.
Findings on the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) of locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) after the concurrent chemoradiation (CCRT) therapy were inconsistent, and the OUTBACK trial was ...expected to shed some light regarding the topic. Its results on ACT in LACC were negative, with the conclusion of not to use it. The objective of this review was to present the inconsistencies of previous studies, along with the OUTBACK trial in more detail, and to rethink whether its results provide an unambiguous and definite answer to the optimal position of ACT in the treatment of LACC. To critically appraise the OUTBACK trial and understand the consequences of its results, we used only randomized controlled studies (RCTs) on ACT in LACC that have been included in high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We calculated the pooled prediction intervals using a random effects meta-analysis of all published randomized studies including the OUTBACK trial. After combining the OUTBACK trial with the results of four previous randomized trials, the pooled hazard ratio for overall survival benefit of CCRT + ACT was 0.95 (95% CI 0.75; 1.20). The pooled hazard ratio of the four previous trials was 1.00 (95% CI 0.69; 1.44). The OUTBACK trial improved the precision of the pooled estimate, but the clinical heterogeneity and the consequent prediction intervals are still very wide, and with 95% reliability, we can expect that if the new study, using a similar approach to the ACT, on a randomly selected patient population from the presented five trials is conducted, its hazard ratio for overall survival after ACT would be between 0.47 and 1.93. In conclusion, there is an absolute need for further research in order to optimally define the position of ACT in the treatment of LACC.
Summary Background Tamoxifen preserves bone in postmenopausal women, but non-steroidal aromatase inhibitors accelerate bone loss and increase fracture risk. We aimed to study the effect on bone ...health in a subgroup of women included in the Intergroup Exemestane Study (IES), a large randomised trial that compared the switch to the steroidal aromatase inhibitor exemestane with continuation of tamoxifen in the adjuvant treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer. Methods Results were analysed from 206 evaluable patients from the IES, in which postmenopausal women with histologically confirmed and completely resected unilateral breast cancer (that was oestrogen-receptor positive or of unknown status), who were disease-free after 2–3 years of treatment with tamoxifen were randomised to continue oral tamoxifen 20 mg/day or switch to oral exemestane 25 mg/day to complete a total of 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy. The primary endpoint was change in bone-mineral density (BMD) assessed by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. Changes in biochemical markers of bone turnover were also analysed in this substudy, and the incidence of fractures in the entire study reported. The IES is registered on the Current Controlled Trials website http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN11883920. Findings Within 6 months of switching to exemestane, BMD was lowered by 0·051 g/cm3 (2·7%; 95% CI 2·0–3·4; p<0·0001) at the lumbar spine and 0·025 g/cm3 (1·4%; 0·8–1·9; p<0·0001) at the hip compared with baseline. BMD decreases were only 1·0% (0·4–1·7; p=0·002) and 0·8% (0·3–1·4; p=0·003) in year 2 at the lumbar spine and hip, respectively. No patient with BMD in the normal range at trial entry developed osteoporosis. Bone resorption and formation markers increased at all time points in women receiving exemestane (p<0·001). With a median follow-up in all IES participants (n=4274) of 58 months, 162 (7%) and 115 (5%) patients in the exemestane and tamoxifen groups, respectively, had fractures (odds ratio 1·45 1·13–1·87; p=0·003). Interpretation These results indicate that the increase in survival shown previously with the IES switch strategy is achieved at the expense of some detriment to skeletal health, so the risk-benefit ratio to women needs to be individually assessed.
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