TPS9077 Background: ALCHEMIST (Adjuvant Lung Cancer Enrichment Marker Identification and Sequencing Trial) is a clinical trial platform of the National Cancer Institute that offers biomarker analysis for high-risk resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to support randomized trials of novel adjuvant therapies within the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). EA5142, a trial of adjuvant nivolumab for patients (pts) without EGFR / ALK alterations, has completed enrollment. Given the survival benefit seen with 1st-line chemo-immunotherapy (chemo-IO) for advanced NSCLC without EGFR / ALK alterations, there was compelling rationale for the launch of a trial offering concurrent immunotherapy with adjuvant chemo. Here we report updated enrollment to ALCHEMIST as of Jan 14, 2020. Methods: ALCHEMIST includes a screening trial (A151216, 5362 registered) that enrolls pts with completely resected clinical stage IB (≥4 cm)–IIIA (per AJCC 7) NSCLC. Tissue and blood are collected, biomarker testing includes EGFR sequencing, ALK FISH and PD-L1 IHC. 733 active sites are enrolling across the NCTN. Pts with EGFR mutations may enroll to adjuvant erlotinib vs observation (A081105, 352 randomized); those with ALK fusions may enroll to adjuvant crizotinib vs observation (E4512, 99 randomized). A trial offering adjuvant nivolumab vs observation regardless of PD-L1 status (EA5142, 935 randomized) recently completed enrollment. To support ongoing investigation of adjuvant immunotherapy, ALCHEMIST is adding A081801 (opens spring 2020). Pts will be randomized to one of 3 arms: chemo-IO with pembrolizumab during and after chemo vs sequential chemo followed by pembrolizumab vs chemo alone. Pts with pathological N2 nodes are eligible and can undergo postoperative radiotherapy after completing chemo. Pts are eligible if enrolled to A151216, negative for EGFR and ALK alterations, and with PD-L1 testing completed (required for stratification). Local testing for EGFR, ALK and PD-L1 will be accepted for enrollment; central testing will not delay randomization. Pts may not have received any therapy except surgery for the lung cancer and must be age >18, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0-1, have no active autoimmune disease requiring systemic treatment within 2 years, must not be pregnant or nursing, have no active second malignancy within 3 years and meet standard organ function values. By building off the ongoing ALCHEMIST platform, we hope to facilitate rapid enrollment to A081801 across participating NCTN sites. Clinical trial information: NCT02194738.
Multitrial evaluation of progression-free survival (PFS) as a surrogate endpoint for overall survival (OS) in previously untreated extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC): An Alliance-led analysis.
7510 Background: We previously demonstrated that PFS may be a candidate surrogate endpoint for OS in ES-SCLC using data from 3 randomized trials (Foster, Cancer 2011). Here, we sought to formally assess the patient- and trial-level surrogacy of PFS using data from 9 additional randomized phase II and III trials conducted by the NCI-funded cancer cooperative groups since 1986. Methods: Individual patient data from all 12 trials (3178 patients: 9 phase III and 3 phase II) were pooled. OS was the primary endpoint in all phase III trials; 3 phase III and 1 phase II trial were positive per protocol. Patient-level surrogacy (Kendall’s tau) was assessed using the Clayton copula bivariate survival model. Trial-level surrogacy was assessed via association of the log hazard ratios on OS and PFS across trials, including: weighted (by trial size) least squares regression of Cox model effects (R² WLS) and weighted (by trial size) correlation of the copula effects (R² Copula). One trial had 4 treatment arms thus 14 total two-arm comparisons were made. Results: With a median follow-up of 41.8 months in the 106 patients still alive, the median OS and PFS across trials were 9.7 months (95% CI: 9.5, 9.9) and 5.7 months (95% CI: 5.5, 5.8), respectively. There were 3120 PFS events in total (2564 disease progressions and 556 deaths without progression). The median time from progression to death was 4.1 months (95% CI: 3.9, 4.3). PFS showed modest association with OS at the patient-level (tau= 0.56) and at the trial-level (R² WLS = 0.58; R² Copula (standard error) = 0.55 (0.29)). The 95% CIs for the predicted HR for OS given observed HR on PFS under a weighted leave-one-out prediction always included the observed HR for OS; however such intervals were wide, suggesting uncertainty on the practical use of PFS as a surrogate for OS in this setting. Conclusions: PFS failed to demonstrate surrogacy for OS in ES-SCLC based on this large pooled analysis. Given that the difference in the median PFS and OS is less than 6 months, we recommend using OS as the primary endpoint in phase III trials of previously untreated ES-SCLC.
ALCHEMIST: a clinical trial platform to bring genomic discovery and molecularly targeted therapies to early-stage lung cancer.
Clinical trial design strategies have evolved over the past few years as a means to accelerate the drug development process so that the right therapies can be delivered to the right patients. Basket, umbrella, and adaptive enrichment strategies represent a class of novel designs for testing targeted therapeutics in oncology. Umbrella trials include a central infrastructure for screening and identification of patients, and focus on a single tumor type or histology with multiple subtrials, each testing a targeted therapy within a molecularly defined subset. Basket trial designs offer the possibility to include multiple molecularly defined subpopulations, often across histology or tumor types, but included in one cohesive design to evaluate the targeted therapy in question. Adaptive enrichment designs offer the potential to enrich for patients with a particular molecular feature that is predictive of benefit for the test treatment based on accumulating evidence from the trial. This review will aim to discuss the fundamentals of these design strategies, the underlying statistical framework, the logistical barriers of implementation, and, ultimately, the interpretation of the trial results. New statistical approaches, extensive multidisciplinary collaboration, and state of the art data capture technologies are needed to implement these strategies in practice. Logistical challenges to implementation arising from centralized assay testing, requirement of multiple specimens, multidisciplinary collaboration, and infrastructure requirements will also be discussed. This review will present these concepts in the context of the National Cancer Institute's precision medicine initiative trials: MATCH, ALCHEMIST, Lung MAP, as well as other trials such as FOCUS4.
Hyperfractionated or Accelerated Radiotherapy in Lung Cancer: An Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis
Purpose In lung cancer, randomized trials assessing hyperfractionated or accelerated radiotherapy seem to yield conflicting results regarding the effects on overall (OS) or progression-free survival (PFS). The Meta-Analysis of Radiotherapy in Lung Cancer Collaborative Group decided to address the role of modified radiotherapy fractionation. Material and Methods We performed an individual patient data meta-analysis in patients with nonmetastatic lung cancer, which included trials comparing modified radiotherapy with conventional radiotherapy. Results In non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC; 10 trials, 2,000 patients), modified fractionation improved OS as compared with conventional schedules (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.88, 95% CI, 0.80 to 0.97; P = .009), resulting in an absolute benefit of 2.5% (8.3% to 10.8%) at 5 years. No evidence of heterogeneity between trials was found. There was no evidence of a benefit on PFS (HR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86 to 1.03; P = .19). Modified radiotherapy reduced deaths resulting from lung cancer (HR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.81 to 0.98; P = .02), and there was a nonsignificant reduction of non–lung cancer deaths (HR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.66 to 1.15; P = .33). In small-cell lung cancer (SCLC; two trials, 685 patients), similar results were found: OS, HR = 0.87, 95% CI, 0.74 to 1.02, P = .08; PFS, HR = 0.88, 95% CI, 0.75 to 1.03, P = .11. In both NSCLC and SCLC, the use of modified radiotherapy increased the risk of acute esophageal toxicity (odds ratio [OR] = 2.44 in NSCLC and OR = 2.41 in SCLC; P < .001) but did not have an impact on the risk of other acute toxicities. Conclusion Patients with nonmetastatic NSCLC derived a significant OS benefit from accelerated or hyperfractionated radiotherapy; a similar but nonsignificant trend was observed for SCLC. As expected, there was increased acute esophageal toxicity.