Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) 2 gene alterations are involved in the pathogenesis of cholangiocarcinoma. Pemigatinib is a selective, potent, oral inhibitor of FGFR1, 2, and 3. This study ...evaluated the safety and antitumour activity of pemigatinib in patients with previously treated, locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma with and without FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements.
In this multicentre, open-label, single-arm, multicohort, phase 2 study (FIGHT-202), patients aged 18 years or older with disease progression following at least one previous treatment and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of 0–2 recruited from 146 academic or community-based sites in the USA, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were assigned to one of three cohorts: patients with FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements, patients with other FGF/FGFR alterations, or patients with no FGF/FGFR alterations. All enrolled patients received a starting dose of 13·5 mg oral pemigatinib once daily (21-day cycle; 2 weeks on, 1 week off) until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, withdrawal of consent, or physician decision. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients who achieved an objective response among those with FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements, assessed centrally in all patients who received at least one dose of pemigatinib. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02924376, and enrolment is completed.
Between Jan 17, 2017, and March 22, 2019, 146 patients were enrolled: 107 with FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements, 20 with other FGF/FGFR alterations, 18 with no FGF/FGFR alterations, and one with an undetermined FGF/FGFR alteration. The median follow-up was 17·8 months (IQR 11·6–21·3). 38 (35·5% 95% CI 26·5–45·4) patients with FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements achieved an objective response (three complete responses and 35 partial responses). Overall, hyperphosphataemia was the most common all-grade adverse event irrespective of cause (88 60% of 146 patients). 93 (64%) patients had a grade 3 or worse adverse event (irrespective of cause); the most frequent were hypophosphataemia (18 12%), arthralgia (nine 6%), stomatitis (eight 5%), hyponatraemia (eight 5%), abdominal pain (seven 5%), and fatigue (seven 5%). 65 (45%) patients had serious adverse events; the most frequent were abdominal pain (seven 5%), pyrexia (seven 5%), cholangitis (five 3%), and pleural effusion (five 3%). Overall, 71 (49%) patients died during the study, most frequently because of disease progression (61 42%); no deaths were deemed to be treatment related.
These data support the therapeutic potential of pemigatinib in previously treated patients with cholangiocarcinoma who have FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements.
Incyte Corporation.
The role of maintenance therapy for gastric (GC) or gastroesophageal junction cancer (GEJC) is unclear. We investigated avelumab (anti-programmed death ligand-1 PD-L1) maintenance after first-line ...induction chemotherapy for GC/GEJC.
JAVELIN Gastric 100 was a global, open-label, phase III trial. Eligible patients had untreated, unresectable, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative, locally advanced or metastatic GC or GEJC. Patients without progressive disease after 12 weeks of first-line chemotherapy with oxaliplatin plus a fluoropyrimidine were randomly assigned 1:1 to avelumab 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks or continued chemotherapy, stratified by region (Asia
non-Asia). The primary end point was overall survival (OS) after induction chemotherapy in all randomly assigned patients or the PD-L1-positive randomly assigned population (≥ 1% of tumor cells; 73-10 assay).
A total of 805 patients received induction; 499 were randomly assigned to avelumab (n = 249) or continued chemotherapy (n = 250). Median OS was 10.4 months (95% CI, 9.1 to 12.0 months) versus 10.9 months (95% CI, 9.6 to 12.4 months) and 24-month OS rate was 22.1% versus 15.5% with avelumab versus chemotherapy, respectively (hazard ratio HR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.74 to 1.11;
= .1779). In the PD-L1-positive population (n = 54), the HR for OS was 1.13 (95% CI, 0.57 to 2.23;
= .6352). In an exploratory analysis of the PD-L1-positive population, defined as combined positive score ≥ 1 (22C3 assay; n = 137), median OS was 14.9 months (95% CI, 8.7 to 17.3 months) with avelumab versus 11.6 months (95% CI, 8.4 to 12.6 months) with chemotherapy (unstratified HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.49 to 1.05). With avelumab and chemotherapy, treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) occurred in 149 (61.3%) and 184 (77.3%) patients, including grade ≥ 3 TRAEs in 31 (12.8%) and 78 (32.8%) patients, respectively.
JAVELIN Gastric 100 did not demonstrate superior OS with avelumab maintenance versus continued chemotherapy in patients with advanced GC or GEJC overall or in a prespecified PD-L1-positive population.
Small Bowel Adenocarcinoma Chen, Emerson Y.; Vaccaro, Gina M.
Clinics in colon and rectal surgery,
09/2018, Volume:
31, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract
Small bowel adenocarcinoma is a clinically and anatomically distinct gastrointestinal cancer that lacks prospective data to support its optimal management. Patients with inflammatory bowel ...disease and inherited conditions that cause gastrointestinal polyps are at especially high risk. Due to a lack of effective surveillance programs resulting in missed or delayed diagnoses only when symptoms develop, this disease is generally discovered at an advanced stage. Surgical resection is the only treatment modality with a chance of cure. Currently accepted treatment considerations are often generalized from large bowel and pancreatic–biliary cancers, due to some anatomic and clinical parallels. Additional research, however, is desperately needed to characterize the unique molecular differences of this disease to better prognosticate patients and establish rational clinical trials that would improve their outcomes.
To investigate the safety and efficacy of nivolumab plus cabozantinib with or without ipilimumab in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.
In cohort 6 of the multicohort, open-label, phase ...I/II CheckMate 040 study, patients who were treatment-naive, sorafenib-intolerant, or had progressed on sorafenib were randomly assigned 1:1 to nivolumab 240 mg once every 2 weeks plus cabozantinib 40 mg once daily (doublet arm); or nivolumab 3 mg/kg every 2 weeks plus cabozantinib 40 mg once daily with ipilimumab 1 mg/kg once every 6 weeks (triplet arm). Primary objectives were safety and tolerability, objective response rate, and duration of response by investigator assessment per RECIST v1.1. Secondary objectives included progression-free survival (by blinded independent central review) and overall survival.
Seventy-one patients were randomly assigned: 36 to the doublet arm and 35 to the triplet arm. After 32.0-month median follow-up, objective response rate (95% CI) was 17% (6 to 33) and 29% (15 to 46) in the doublet and triplet arms, respectively. Median (95% CI) duration of response was 8.3 (6.9 to not estimable) months in the doublet arm and not reached (0.0 to not estimable) in the triplet arm. Median progression-free survival was 5.1 and 4.3 months, and median overall survival was 20.2 and 22.1 months for the doublet and triplet arms, respectively. Grade 3-4 treatment-related adverse events occurred in 50% and 74% of patients and treatment-related adverse events leading to discontinuation were reported for 11% and 23% in the doublet and triplet arms, respectively. There were no treatment-related deaths in either arm.
Nivolumab plus cabozantinib with or without ipilimumab showed encouraging preliminary antitumor activity and had consistent safety profiles with those established for the individual drugs in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.
In patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) that metastasizes to the liver, there are several key goals for improving outcomes including early detection, effective prognostic indicators of treatment ...response, and accurate identification of patients at high risk for recurrence. Although new therapeutic regimens developed over the past decade have increased survival, there is substantial room for improvement in selecting targeted treatment regimens for the patients who will derive the most benefit. Recently, there have been exciting developments in identifying high-risk patient cohorts, refinements in the understanding of systemic vs localized drug delivery to metastatic niches, liquid biomarker development, and dramatic advances in tumor immune therapy, all of which promise new and innovative approaches to tackling the problem of detecting and treating the metastatic spread of CRC to the liver. Our multidisciplinary group held a state-of-the-science symposium this past year to review advances in this rapidly evolving field. Herein, we present a discussion around the issues facing treatment of patients with CRC liver metastases, including the relationship of discrete gene signatures with prognosis. We also discuss the latest advances to maximize regional and systemic therapies aimed at decreasing intrahepatic recurrence, review recent insights into the tumor microenvironment, and summarize advances in noninvasive multimodal biomarkers for early detection of primary and recurrent disease. As we continue to advance clinically and technologically in the field of colorectal tumor biology, our goal should be continued refinement of predictive and prognostic studies to decrease recurrence after curative resection and minimize treatment toxicity to patients through a tailored multidisciplinary approach to cancer care.
Small-bowel adenocarcinoma is rare and fatal. Because of data paucity, there is a tendency to extrapolate treatment from colon cancer, particularly in the adjuvant stetting.
The purpose of this study ...was to evaluate the current surgical and adjuvant treatments of small-bowel adenocarcinoma and compare with colon cancer.
This was a retrospective cohort study.
The linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results and Medicare database was used at a tertiary referral hospital.
Patients with small-bowel adenocarcinoma and colon cancer identified from 1992 to 2010, using International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, 3 Revision, site, behavior, and histology codes were included.
Overall survival and cancer-specific survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and competing risk analysis.
A total of 2123 patients with small-bowel adenocarcinoma and 248,862 patients with colon cancer were identified. Five-year overall survival rates for patients with small-bowel adenocarcinoma and colon cancer were 34.9% and 51.5% (p < 0.0001). A total of 1550 patients with small-bowel adenocarcinoma (73.0%) underwent surgery, compared with 177,017 patients with colon cancer (71.1%). The proportion of patients who received chemotherapy was similar, at 21.3% for small bowel and 20.0% for colon. In contrast to colon cancer, chemotherapy did not improve overall or cancer-specific survival for patients with small-bowel adenocarcinoma, regardless of stage. Predictors of poor survival for small-bowel adenocarcinoma on multivariate analysis included advanced age, black race, advanced stage, poor tumor differentiation, high comorbidity index, and distal location. Chemotherapy did not confer additional survival benefit compared with surgery alone (HR, 1.04 (95% CI, 0.90-1.22)).
This was a retrospective review. The reliance on Medicare data limited granularity and may have affected the generalizability of the results.
The prognosis for small-bowel adenocarcinoma is worse than that for colon cancer, and only surgery improves survival. In contrast to colon cancer, a survival benefit from current chemotherapy regimens for small-bowel adenocarcinoma is not seen, suggesting that it may be overused and needs more rigorous study.
Purpose
Resection of liver-only colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) with perioperative chemotherapy is potentially curative. Specific primary tumor and liver metastasis characteristics have been ...validated to estimate the risk of recurrence. We hypothesize that the time interval from diagnosis of CRLM to surgery, or time to surgery (TTS), is clinically prognostic.
Methods
Patients from a prospectively maintained institutional database at a Comprehensive Cancer Center from May 2003 to January 2018 were reviewed. Clinicopathologic, perioperative treatment, and TTS data were collected. TTS was categorized into short (< 3 months), intermediate (3–6 months), and long (
>
6 months) intervals.
Results
Two hundred eighty-one patients were identified. While overall survival (OS) was similar across TTS, postoperative overall survival (postoperative OS) of long TTS was associated with worse survival, 44 months (95% CI, 34–52) compared to short TTS, 59 months (95% CI, 43–79), and intermediate TTS, 63 months (95% CI, 52–108), both
p
< 0.01. With regard to long-term OS, intermediate TTS had 5-year OS of 59% and 8-year OS of 43% compared to long TTS (5-year OS 53% and 8-year OS 18%) and short TTS (5-year OS 54% and 8-year OS 29%). Long TTS was negatively associated with postoperative OS on multivariate analysis (HR 1.6,
p
< 0.01) when adjusting for resection margin, CRLM size, age, and use of postoperative chemotherapy.
Conclusion
Short and intermediate TTS had similar survival although patients with intermediate TTS may have better odds of long-term OS. While long TTS was associated with worse survival, likely due to higher disease burden, long-term survivors were still observed.
Pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) may be a clinical prognostic marker of superior outcomes. In patients with esophageal cancer, pCR is associated with ...increased survival. While mechanisms for increasing the likelihood of pCR remain unknown, in other solid tumors, higher rates of pCR have been associated with longer time intervals between CRT completion and surgical procedures.
To determine the association between time intervals from the completion of CRT to surgical procedure with rates of pCR in patients with esophageal cancer.
A prospectively maintained multidisciplinary foregut database was reviewed for consecutively enrolled patients with esophageal cancer from January 2000 to July 2015 presenting for surgical evaluation at a single National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center within a quaternary academic medical center.
Included patients successfully completed neoadjuvant CRT followed by esophagectomy.
Rate of pCR by logistic regression based on a categorized time interval (ie, 0 to 42, 43 to 56, 57 to 70, 71 to 84, 85 to 98, and 99 or more days) from the completion of CRT to surgical resection, adjusted for clinical stage, demographic information, and CRT regimen.
Of the 234 patients who met inclusion criteria, 191 (81.6%) were male, and the median (range) age was 64 (58-70) years; 206 (88.0%) were diagnosed as having adenocarcinoma, and 65 (27.9%) had a pCR. Patients in the 85 to 98-day group had significantly increased odds of a pCR compared with other groups (odds ratio, 5.46; 95% CI, 1.16-25.68; P = .03). No significant differences in survival were seen between time groups overall or among patients with residual tumor.
This study suggests that a time interval of 85 to 98 days between CRT completion and surgical resection is associated with significantly increased odds of a pCR in patients with esophageal cancer. No adverse association with survival was detected as a result of delaying resection, even in patients with residual tumor.
Abstract Background Predicting treatment response to chemo-radiotherapy (CRT) in esophageal cancer remains an unrealized goal despite studies linking constellations of genes to prognosis. We aimed to ...determine if specific expression profiles are associated with pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant CRT. Methods Eleven genes previously associated with esophageal cancer prognosis were identified. Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) patients treated with neoadjuvant CRT and esophagectomy were included. Patients were classified into two groups: pCR and no-or-incomplete response (NR). Polymerase chain reaction was used to evaluate gene expression. Omnibus testing was applied to overall gene expression differences between groups, and log-rank tests compared individual genes. Results Eleven pCR and eighteen NR patients were analyzed. Combined expression profiles were significantly different between pCR and NR groups (p < 0.01). The gene CCL28 was over-expressed in pCR patients (Log-HR: 1.53, 95%CI: 0.46–2.59, p = 0.005), and DKK3 was under-expressed in pCR (Log-HR: −1.03 95%CI: −1.97, −0.10, p = 0.031). Conclusion EAC tumors that demonstrated a pCR have genetic profiles that are significantly different from typical NR profiles. The genes CCL28 and DKK3 are potential predictors of treatment response.