Trask, Peter C.

Introduction: Phase I trials are designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of new treatments. Review of adverse events (AEs) experienced by trial participants is a critical aspect of these early phase trials. Current practice for safety and tolerability data collection is for clinicians to evaluate AEs using the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE). Past work has demonstrated that clinicians may miss or underreport symptomatic AEs. The Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the CTCAE (PRO-CTCAE) is an item library of questions for patients to self-report symptomatic AEs in clinical trials that is complementary to the CTCAE. PRO-CTCAE offers a patient-centric method for capturing symptomatic AEs, which may be missed or underreported by clinicians. The PRO-CTCAE library includes questions using patient friendly terms to assess frequency, severity, and interference of symptomatic AEs on 0-4 verbal descriptor scales (e.g., severity is rated by patients as none, mild, moderate, severe, or very severe). The goal of the current work was to demonstrate how to incorporate AE information from PRO-CTCAE and CTCAE into a Phase I dose review report. Methods: We used data from a Phase I clinical trial of patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia. Therapy was administered on 28-day cycles. Patients completed questionnaires on an electronic device on days 1, 8, 15, and 22 of the first cycle of treatment. Through iterative feedback from clinicians and statisticians, we developed an example dose review report. The report summarized data for one dose level in which 4 patients were treated. These 4 patients comprised the first patient cohort enrolled in the available Phase I clinical trial. The report was intended to be representative of the type of report that would be reviewed to make a decision about the next dose level for a new cohort of patients. Results: The final dose review report included narratives for each patient generated by the statistical team based on patient-reported and physician-graded AEs in cycle 1, tabular summaries integrating CTCAE and PRO-CTCAE, and novel graphical presentation of PRO-CTCAE and CTCAE, including swimmer plots and butterfly plots for symptoms listed as dose limiting toxicity criteria. In this cohort, 3/4 (75%) patients had at least one grade 3+ AE, as assessed by CTCAE, and 4/4 (100%) patients had at least one score 3 symptomatic AE, as assessed by PRO-CTCAE. All 4/4 (100%) patients had at least one reported symptom on the PRO-CTCAE that was not captured by CTCAE or was reported at a lower grade by CTCAE. Multiple versions of the example dose review report were presented to the study team and iterative feedback was solicited from clinicians and statisticians. Feedback highlighted the usefulness of narratives and patient-level graphical displays. Narratives within the dose review report were refined to focus on treatment emergent AEs, minimizing text and succinctly presenting baseline symptoms where relevant. Symptom-level graphics of combined PRO-CTCAE scores and CTCAE grades were preferred over graphics consolidating data for multiple symptoms. Final graphics and report will be presented. Conclusions: We demonstrated that PRO-CTCAE, which captures patient-reported symptoms, complements traditional AE reporting and that reporting PRO-CTCAE and CTCAE jointly in a Phase I dose level report can provide a more complete picture of safety and tolerability in the Phase I setting.

Background: Rearranged during transfection ( RET ) alterations are targetable oncogenic drivers in thyroid cancer. Primary data from the open-label, phase 1/2 ARROW study demonstrated clinical activity and manageable safety with pralsetinib, a selective RET inhibitor, in patients with advanced/metastatic RET -altered thyroid cancer. We present an updated analysis with more patients and longer follow-up. Methods: Adult patients with advanced/metastatic RET -mutant medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) or RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer who initiated oral pralsetinib at 400 mg once daily were included. Primary endpoints were overall response rate (ORR) by blinded independent central review (per RECIST v1.1) and safety. Secondary endpoints included duration of response (DoR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival. Responses were assessed in three cohorts of patients with baseline measurable disease: patients with RET -mutant MTC who had received prior cabozantinib and/or vandetanib (C/V), treatment-naïve patients with RET -mutant MTC, and patients with previously treated RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) were an exploratory endpoint. Results: As of October 18, 2021, the measurable disease population comprised of 61 patients with RET -mutant MTC and prior C/V, 62 treatment-naïve patients with RET -mutant MTC, and 22 patients with RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer who had received prior systemic therapy, including radioactive iodine. The ORR was 55.7% [confidence interval; 95% CI: 42.4–68.5] in patients with RET -mutant MTC and prior C/V, 77.4% [95% CI: 65.0–87.1] in treatment-naïve patients with RET -mutant MTC, and 90.9% [95% CI: 70.8–98.9] in patients with previously treated RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer. Median DoR and median PFS were both 25.8 months in patients with RET -mutant MTC and prior C/V, not reached in treatment-naïve patients with RET -mutant MTC, and 23.6 and 25.4 months, respectively, in patients with previously treated RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer. In the RET -altered thyroid cancer safety population ( N = 175), 97.1% of patients reported a treatment-related adverse event (TRAE); these led to discontinuation in 5.7% and dose reduction in 52.6% of patients. There was one death (0.6%) due to a TRAE. PROs improved or remained stable after pralsetinib treatment. Conclusions: In this updated analysis of the ARROW study, pralsetinib continued to show deep and durable clinical activity and a manageable safety profile in patients with advanced/metastatic RET- altered thyroid cancer. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT03037385

As new cancer treatment regimens demonstrate increased potential to improve patients’ survival, more focus is directed toward the quality of that extension of life and to obtaining additional information from patients regarding their experience with treatment. The utility of capturing patient-reported treatment-related symptoms to complement traditional clinician-rated symptomatic adverse event reporting is well-documented. The National Cancer Institute’s Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events is an item library aimed at capturing patient-reported symptoms to inform the patient perspective on a treatment’s tolerability. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended using the Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events in clinical trials. A practical guideline is needed to inform a priori selection of specific Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events items for use in any given industry-sponsored oncology clinical trial. Standardizing this selection process will foster systematic and consistent data collection as part of drug development and enhance our knowledge on how to use patient-relevant information as part of a treatment’s risk/benefit assessment. This article presents methods and consensus recommendations for selecting specific Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events items to include in early-phase and late-phase oncology clinical trials.