Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Low-dose computed tomography screening (LDCT) was recently shown to anticipate the time of diagnosis, thus reducing lung cancer mortality. ...However, concerns persist about the feasibility and costs of large-scale LDCT programs. Such concerns may be addressed by clearly defining the target "high-risk" population that needs to be screened by LDCT. We recently identified a serum microRNA signature (the miR-Test) that could identify the optimal target population. Here, we performed a large-scale validation study of the miR-Test in high-risk individuals (n = 1115) enrolled in the Continuous Observation of Smoking Subjects (COSMOS) lung cancer screening program. The overall accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the miR-Test are 74.9% (95% confidence interval CI = 72.2% to 77.6%), 77.8% (95% CI = 64.2% to 91.4%), and 74.8% (95% CI = 72.1% to 77.5%), respectively; the area under the curve is 0.85 (95% CI = 0.78 to 0.92). These results argue that the miR-Test might represent a useful tool for lung cancer screening in high-risk individuals.
Summary Background Afatinib—an oral irreversible ErbB family blocker—improves progression-free survival compared with pemetrexed and cisplatin for first-line treatment of patients with EGFR ...mutation-positive advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We compared afatinib with gemcitabine and cisplatin—a chemotherapy regimen widely used in Asia—for first-line treatment of Asian patients with EGFR mutation-positive advanced NSCLC. Methods This open-label, randomised phase 3 trial was done at 36 centres in China, Thailand, and South Korea. After central testing for EGFR mutations, treatment-naive patients (stage IIIB or IV cancer American Joint Committee on Cancer version 6, performance status 0–1) were randomly assigned (2:1) to receive either oral afatinib (40 mg per day) or intravenous gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2 on day 1 and day 8 plus cisplatin 75 mg/m2 on day 1 of a 3-week schedule for up to six cycles. Randomisation was done centrally with a random number-generating system and an interactive internet and voice-response system. Randomisation was stratified by EGFR mutation (Leu858Arg, exon 19 deletions, or other; block size three). Clinicians and patients were not masked to treatment assignment, but the independent central imaging review group were. Treatment continued until disease progression, intolerable toxic effects, or withdrawal of consent. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival assessed by independent central review (intention-to-treat population). This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT01121393. Findings 910 patients were screened and 364 were randomly assigned (242 to afatinib, 122 to gemcitabine and cisplatin). Median progression-free survival was significantly longer in the afatinib group (11·0 months, 95% CI 9·7–13·7) than in the gemcitabine and cisplatin group (5·6 months, 5·1–6·7; hazard ratio 0·28, 95% CI 0·20–0·39; p<0·0001). The most common treatment-related grade 3 or 4 adverse events in the afatinib group were rash or acne (35 14·6% of 239 patients), diarrhoea (13 5·4%), and stomatitis or mucositis (13 5·4%), compared with neutropenia (30 26·5% of 113 patients), vomiting (22 19·5%), and leucopenia (17 15·0%) in the gemcitabine and cisplatin group. Treatment-related serious adverse events occurred in 15 (6·3%) patients in the afatinib group and nine (8·0%) patients in the gemcitabine and cisplatin group. Interpretation First-line afatinib significantly improves progression-free survival with a tolerable and manageable safety profile in Asian patients with EGFR mutation-positive advanced lung NSCLC. Afatinib should be considered as a first-line treatment option for this patient population. Funding Boehringer Ingelheim.
Patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer with a PD-L1 expression level of 1% or more of tumor cells were randomly assigned to receive nivolumab plus ipilimumab, nivolumab alone, or ...chemotherapy. Overall survival was significantly longer among the patients who received nivolumab plus ipilimumab than among those who received chemotherapy.
Among patients with lung cancer that expressed programmed death ligand 1, the anti–PD-L1 antibody atezolizumab was compared with chemotherapy in a randomized trial. In the subgroup with the highest ...PD-L1 expression, the median overall survival was 20.2 months with atezolizumab and 13.1 months with chemotherapy.
Highlights • Higher expression of UCA1 is significantly associated with poorer survival time. • UCA1 overexpression enhanced the proliferation and colony formation of NSCLC cells. • ERBB4 is ...upregulated by UCA1 through competitively ‘spongeing’ miR-193a-3p.
Radiologic screening of high-risk adults reduces lung-cancer-related mortality
; however, a small minority of eligible individuals undergo such screening in the United States
. The availability of ...blood-based tests could increase screening uptake. Here we introduce improvements to cancer personalized profiling by deep sequencing (CAPP-Seq)
, a method for the analysis of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), to better facilitate screening applications. We show that, although levels are very low in early-stage lung cancers, ctDNA is present prior to treatment in most patients and its presence is strongly prognostic. We also find that the majority of somatic mutations in the cell-free DNA (cfDNA) of patients with lung cancer and of risk-matched controls reflect clonal haematopoiesis and are non-recurrent. Compared with tumour-derived mutations, clonal haematopoiesis mutations occur on longer cfDNA fragments and lack mutational signatures that are associated with tobacco smoking. Integrating these findings with other molecular features, we develop and prospectively validate a machine-learning method termed 'lung cancer likelihood in plasma' (Lung-CLiP), which can robustly discriminate early-stage lung cancer patients from risk-matched controls. This approach achieves performance similar to that of tumour-informed ctDNA detection and enables tuning of assay specificity in order to facilitate distinct clinical applications. Our findings establish the potential of cfDNA for lung cancer screening and highlight the importance of risk-matching cases and controls in cfDNA-based screening studies.
Immune evasion is a hallmark of cancer. Losing the ability to present neoantigens through human leukocyte antigen (HLA) loss may facilitate immune evasion. However, the polymorphic nature of the ...locus has precluded accurate HLA copy-number analysis. Here, we present loss of heterozygosity in human leukocyte antigen (LOHHLA), a computational tool to determine HLA allele-specific copy number from sequencing data. Using LOHHLA, we find that HLA LOH occurs in 40% of non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) and is associated with a high subclonal neoantigen burden, APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis, upregulation of cytolytic activity, and PD-L1 positivity. The focal nature of HLA LOH alterations, their subclonal frequencies, enrichment in metastatic sites, and occurrence as parallel events suggests that HLA LOH is an immune escape mechanism that is subject to strong microenvironmental selection pressures later in tumor evolution. Characterizing HLA LOH with LOHHLA refines neoantigen prediction and may have implications for our understanding of resistance mechanisms and immunotherapeutic approaches targeting neoantigens.
Display omitted
Display omitted
•LOHHLA enables estimation of allele-specific HLA loss from sequencing data•LOH of the HLA locus occurs in 40% of early stage non-small-cell lung cancers•HLA LOH is associated with a high subclonal neoantigen burden and immune activity•HLA LOH is an immune escape mechanism subject to strong selection pressures
Development of the bioinformatics tool LOHHLA allows precise measurement of allele-specific HLA copy number, improves the accuracy in neoantigen prediction, and uncovers insights into how immune escape contributes to tumor evolution in non-small-cell lung cancer.
In patients with locally advanced non–small-cell lung cancer who have undergone concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy, the use of durvalumab in the year after completing treatment ...significantly prolonged disease-free and overall survival as compared with placebo.
The addition of pembrolizumab to chemotherapy for metastatic lung cancer without
EGFR
or
ALK
mutations resulted in better progression-free and overall survival than chemotherapy alone. Immune-related ...adverse effects were more common with the combination.
In the randomized, open-label, phase III KEYNOTE-024 study, pembrolizumab significantly improved progression-free survival and overall survival (OS) compared with platinum-based chemotherapy in ...patients with previously untreated advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a programmed death ligand 1 tumor proportion score of 50% or greater and without EGFR/ALK aberrations. We report an updated OS and tolerability analysis, including analyses adjusting for potential bias introduced by crossover from chemotherapy to pembrolizumab.
Patients were randomly assigned to pembrolizumab 200 mg every 3 weeks (for up to 2 years) or investigator's choice of platinum-based chemotherapy (four to six cycles). Patients assigned to chemotherapy could cross over to pembrolizumab upon meeting eligibility criteria. The primary end point was progression-free survival; OS was an important key secondary end point. Crossover adjustment analysis was done using the following three methods: simplified two-stage method, rank-preserving structural failure time, and inverse probability of censoring weighting.
Three hundred five patients were randomly assigned (pembrolizumab, n = 154; chemotherapy, n = 151). At data cutoff (July 10, 2017; median follow-up, 25.2 months), 73 patients in the pembrolizumab arm and 96 in the chemotherapy arm had died. Median OS was 30.0 months (95% CI, 18.3 months to not reached) with pembrolizumab and 14.2 months (95% CI, 9.8 to 19.0 months) with chemotherapy (hazard ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.86). Eighty-two patients assigned to chemotherapy crossed over on study to receive pembrolizumab. When adjusted for crossover using the two-stage method, the hazard ratio for OS for pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy was 0.49 (95% CI, 0.34 to 0.69); results using rank-preserving structural failure time and inverse probability of censoring weighting were similar. Treatment-related grade 3 to 5 adverse events were less frequent with pembrolizumab compared with chemotherapy (31.2% v 53.3%, respectively).
With prolonged follow-up, first-line pembrolizumab monotherapy continues to demonstrate an OS benefit over chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated, advanced NSCLC without EGFR/ALK aberrations, despite crossover from the control arm to pembrolizumab as subsequent therapy.
PDF
