Citations

Abstract Oncology has undergone major changes in systemic treatment options, from chemotherapy to antiangiogenic agents to tyrosine-kinase inhibitors to immunotherapy. Historically, a therapeutic agent is tested in separate trials as monotherapy or combined with investigational or approved agents/modalities, to determine antitumor activity in each histology based on the premise that each histology responds differently to the same treatment. This paradigm is time consuming and may or may not make use of molecular characterization to test each agent in each histology. However, with the expansion of biologic understanding and development of various biomarkers, e.g., estrogen receptor and Her 2 amplification, we move beyond the basic paradigm of general histology to one in which treatment is based upon molecular characteristics of the tumor. Examples of recent discoveries from this more modern paradigm are (1) multiple histologies sharing a common molecular profile and (2) a subset within a single histology having a given molecular characteristic. Various agents have been tested singularly in terms of molecular aberrations and histology, e.g., ALK inhibitors and NSCLC. However, with the rapid increase in the number of targeted agents in development, more facile and efficient clinical trial designs are needed. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) collaborated in designing the Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice trial (NCI-MATCH or EAY131), the first large-scale signal-finding precision medicine oncology trial in the United States to incorporate centralized NGS testing to direct patients to parallel (nonrandomized) phase II treatment arms under a master protocol. The trial is being conducted by the NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), with ECOG-ACRIN leading the trial. More than 100 investigators from across the NCTN adult cancer-oriented member groups (Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, ECOG-ACRIN, NRG Oncology, and SWOG) have worked collaboratively to design and lead what is currently 30 treatment arms (subprotocols), with more arms in development. Wide-scale NCTN investigator involvement ensures use of the latest knowledge to define the actionable mutations required for eligibility and to make evidence-based selections of experimental agents. In NCI-MATCH, patients are assigned treatment based on the genomic alterations found in their tumors through genomic sequencing and other tests at the time of initial enrollment for screening. Unlike other phase II trials, each arm is open to advanced solid tumors, lymphomas, or myeloma that share a set of molecular aberrations, not restricted to a single histology. This strategy accommodates and encourages enrollment of rare tumors for which there are often no standard treatments and limited clinical trial options. NCI-MATCH has 10-30 concurrent treatment arms available to patients at any given time, testing both investigational agents and FDA-approved drugs for new indications. Most treatment arms have an enrollment goal of 35 patients, with some arms that address tumor gene variants of higher prevalence expanded to 70 patients. Together, the NCTN and NCI Community Oncology Research Program provide infrastructure for many clinical sites (>1100) to participate, providing ready access to physicians and patients; screening enrollment has occurred in all 50 states in the U.S, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. A specific assay was developed for the trial (the MATCH assay), and a laboratory network was organized to rapidly process the tissue and efficiently interrogate for mutations. NCI and ECOG-ACRIN statisticians developed the analysis plan and are currently maintaining data that are closely monitored by safety experts for any adverse event signals. Lastly, a bioinformatics system (MATCHbox) was developed to coordinate molecular data collection and support rule-based decision-making based on those data. Because genomics in oncology is rapidly expanding and evolving, NCI-MATCH required flexibility to accommodate brisker screening accrual than anticipated, and adaptation to constantly emerging information about new drugs and new molecular alterations. The goal to sequence the tumors of 6,000 patients with NCI funding was achieved two years ahead of schedule, but that cohort was not sufficient to fill all the arms—in particular, those aimed at the most rarely occurring tumor gene aberrations. Currently, the goal for the trial is to complete the open treatment arms by allowing for designated commercial and academic laboratories to notify ordering physicians when genomic tests they ordered to guide clinical care indicate a potential eligibility to a NCI-MATCH arm with a rare variant and allow for enrollment to the relevant treatment subprotocol if the patient meets all subprotocol eligibility criteria. The tissue confirmation of the molecular abnormality on the MATCH assay by the central laboratories will be accomplished after subprotocol enrollment so that patient treatment will not be delayed for confirmation. A demonstration project is now under way to test the applicability of this approach and potentially develop common standards for future use. With tumor sequencing becoming a more and more common practice in oncology, this may allow patients with mutations of low prevalence to have investigational treatment options. NCI-MATCH is expanding its panel and definition of actionable mutations to allow greater flexibility to incorporate in real time new mutations supported with adequate levels of evidence. The valuable genomic and clinical outcome data collected in the trial will permit evaluation of efficacy of targeting certain actionable mutations with a specific agent. In addition, biospecimens are being collected to build a rich resource for conducting auxiliary biology studies that may answer questions about prevalence of mutations in the metastatic setting, prevalence of mutations in rare histologies, and resistance mechanisms of various targeted therapy. At this meeting, two abstracts will provide an overall trial update and present information about the prevalence of mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR) in the centrally screened population. Citation Format: Alice P. Chen, Peter J. O'Dwyer, Lyndsay Harris, Barbara A. Conley, Stanley R. Hamilton, Mickey Williams, Robert J. Gray, Shuli Li, Lisa M. McShane, Lawrence V. Rubinstein, Susanna I. Lee, Shaji Kumar, Edith P. Mitchell, James A. Zwiebel, Constantine A. Gatsonis, Lalitha K. Shankar, Paolo F. Caimi, Carlos L. Arteaga, A John Iafrate, Jeffrey Sklar, Richard F. Little, Keith T. Flaherty. NCI-MATCH: A new paradigm in the era of genomic oncology [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2017 Oct 26-30; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2018;17(1 Suppl):Abstract nr PL03-01.

AbstractBackground: Pathogenic germline mutations in the CDKN2A tumor suppressor gene are rare and associated with highly penetrant familial melanoma and pancreatic cancer in non-Hispanic whites (NHW). To date, the prevalence and impact of CDKN2A rare coding variants (RCV) in racial minority groups remain poorly characterized. We examined the role of CDKN2A RCVs on the risk of pancreatic cancer among minority subjects.Methods: We sequenced CDKN2A in 220 African American (AA) pancreatic cancer cases, 900 noncancer AA controls, and 183 Nigerian controls. RCV frequencies were determined for each group and compared with that of 1,537 NHW patients with pancreatic cancer. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for both a case–case comparison of RCV frequencies in AAs versus NHWs, and case–control comparison between AA cases versus noncancer AA controls plus Nigerian controls. Smaller sets of Hispanic and Native American cases and controls also were sequenced.Results: One novel missense RCV and one novel frameshift RCV were found among AA patients: 400G>A and 258_278del. RCV carrier status was associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer among AA cases (11/220; OR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.5–7.1; P = 0.004) compared with AA and Nigerian controls (17/1,083). Further, AA cases had higher frequency of RCVs: 5.0% (OR, 13.4; 95% CI, 4.9–36.7; P < 0.001) compared with NHW cases (0.4%).Conclusions: CDKN2A RCVs are more common in AA than in NHW patients with pancreatic cancer and associated with moderately increased pancreatic cancer risk among AAs.Impact: RCVs in CDKN2A are frequent in AAs and are associated with risk for pancreatic cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 27(11); 1364–70. ©2018 AACR.

Abstract Lessons Learned Everolimus does not have sufficient activity to justify its use as single agent in metastatic melanoma. Patients treated with 10 mg per day dose were most likely to require dose reductions. Everolimus appeared to reduce the numbers of regulatory T cells in approximately half of the treated patients; unfortunately, these effects were not correlated with clinical outcomes. Background Everolimus (RAD-001) is an orally active rapamycin analogue shown in preclinical data to produce cytostatic cell inhibition, which may be potentially beneficial in treating melanoma. We conducted a phase II study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of everolimus in patients with unresectable metastatic melanoma (MM). Methods This study included two cohorts; cohort 1 received 30 mg of everolimus by mouth (PO) weekly, and cohort 2 was dosed with 10 mg of everolimus PO daily. The endpoints of the study were safety, 16-week progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and measures of immunomodulatory/antiangiogenic properties with therapy. Tumor samples before therapy and at week 8 of treatment were analyzed. Peripheral blood plasma or mononuclear cell isolates collected prior to therapy and at weeks 8 and 16 and at time of tumor progression were analyzed for vascular endothelial growth factor and regulatory T-cell (Treg) measurements. Results A total of 53 patients were enrolled in cohort 1 (n = 24) and cohort 2 (n = 29). Only 2 patients of the first 20 patients enrolled in cohort 2 had treatment responses (25%; 95% confidence interval, 8.6%–49.1%); this result did not allow full accrual to cohort 2, as the study was terminated for futility. Median OS was 12.2 months for cohort 1 versus 8.1 months in cohort 2; no PFS advantage was seen in either group (2.1 months vs. 1.8 months). Dose-limiting toxicities included grade 4 myocardial ischemia (3.4%); grade 3 fatigue, mucositis, and hyperglycemia (10.3%); and anorexia and anemia (6.9%). Everolimus significantly reduced the number of Tregs in approximately half of the treated patients; however, these effects were not correlated with clinical outcomes. Conclusion Everolimus does not have sufficient single-agent activity in MM; however, we have identified evidence of biological activity to provide a potential rationale for future combination studies.

PurposeTo establish a mathematical model to guide prospective T2‐weighted four‐dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (4DMRI) acquisition and to propose an efficient solution to expedite prospective T2‐weighted 4DMRI acquisition.MethodsProspective T2‐weighted 4DMRI acquisition was characterized by a mathematical model with 4DMRI acquisition time as the objective function and completeness of the image set, acquisition timing, image contrast, and image artifacts as constraints. Given the irregular nature of human respiration, an efficient solution based on the greedy strategy (ESGS) was proposed. The efficiency of the ESGS method was validated using healthy human subjects. Comparisons were made with the previous 4DMRI method incorporating the prefixed‐order respiratory state splitting (PO‐RSS) technique.Results4DMRI image sets acquired using the ESGS and PO‐RSS methods had similar image quality. The average time to acquire a 4DMRI image set covering 60 slices at 10 respiratory states was reduced by 30%, from 13.1 min using the PO‐RSS method to 9.0 min using the ESGS method. It was demonstrated that high‐quality T2‐weighted 4DMRI could be obtained within a reasonable amount of time and all slices within each of the three‐dimensional volumes were indeed acquired at the same respiratory state.ConclusionsThe ESGS method substantially reduces the acquisition time for T2‐weighted 4DMRI, making it ready for clinical evaluation to obtain abdominal tumor motion for radiotherapy treatment planning.

BACKGROUNDEarly treatment failure (ETF) in follicular lymphoma (FL), defined as relapse or progression within 2 years of frontline chemoimmunotherapy, is a newly recognized marker of poor survival and identifies a high‐risk group of patients with an expected 5‐year overall survival (OS) rate of approximately 50%. Transplantation is an established option for relapsed FL, but its efficacy in this specific ETF FL population has not been previously evaluated.METHODSThis study compared autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (auto‐HCT) with either matched sibling donor (MSD) or matched unrelated donor (MUD) allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo‐HCT) as the first transplantation approach for patients with ETF FL (age ≥ 18 years) undergoing auto‐HCT or allo‐HCT between 2002 and 2014. The primary endpoint was OS. The secondary endpoints were progression‐free survival, relapse, and nonrelapse mortality (NRM).RESULTSFour hundred forty FL patients had ETF (auto‐HCT, 240; MSD hematopoietic stem cell transplantation [HCT], 105; and MUD HCT, 95). With a median follow‐up of 69 to 73 months, the adjusted probability of 5‐year OS was significantly higher after auto‐HCT (70%) or MSD HCT (73%) versus MUD HCT (49%; P = .0008). The 5‐year adjusted probability of NRM was significantly lower for auto‐HCT (5%) versus MSD (17%) or MUD HCT (33%; P < .0001). The 5‐year adjusted probability of disease relapse was lower with MSD (31%) or MUD HCT (23%) versus auto‐HCT (58%; P < .0001).CONCLUSIONSPatients with high‐risk FL, as defined by ETF, undergoing auto‐HCT for FL have low NRM and a promising 5‐year OS rate (70%). MSD HCT has lower relapse rates than auto‐HCT but similar OS. Cancer 2018;124:2541‐51. © 2018 American Cancer Society.

Objective: Acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy in severe vasodilatory shock is associated with an unfavorable prognosis. Angiotensin II treatment may help these patients by potentially restoring renal function without decreasing intrarenal oxygenation. We analyzed the impact of angiotensin II on the outcomes of acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy. Design: Post hoc analysis of the Angiotensin II for the Treatment of High-Output Shock 3 trial. Setting: ICUs. Patients: Patients with acute kidney injury treated with renal replacement therapy at initiation of angiotensin II or placebo ( n = 45 and n = 60, respectively). Interventions: IV angiotensin II or placebo. Measurements and Main Results: Primary end point: survival through day 28; secondary outcomes included renal recovery through day 7 and increase in mean arterial pressure from baseline of ≥ 10 mm Hg or increase to ≥ 75 mm Hg at hour 3. Survival rates through day 28 were 53% (95% CI, 38%–67%) and 30% (95% CI, 19%–41%) in patients treated with angiotensin II and placebo ( p = 0.012), respectively. By day 7, 38% (95% CI, 25%–54%) of angiotensin II patients discontinued RRT versus 15% (95% CI, 8%–27%) placebo ( p = 0.007). Mean arterial pressure response was achieved in 53% (95% CI, 38%–68%) and 22% (95% CI, 12%–34%) of patients treated with angiotensin II and placebo ( p = 0.001), respectively. Conclusions: In patients with acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy at study drug initiation, 28-day survival and mean arterial pressure response were higher, and rate of renal replacement therapy liberation was greater in the angiotensin II group versus the placebo group. These findings suggest that patients with vasodilatory shock and acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy may preferentially benefit from angiotensin II.

We studied retrospectively the results in 24 patients (25 feet) who had been treated by subtalar arthrodesis with internal compression for post-traumatic arthritis from 1988 to 1992. Fifteen patients were men (16 feet) and nine (9 feet) were women. Their mean age was 43 years (22 to 68), and the average duration of follow-up was four years (2 to 6). A single compression screw was used in all feet and iliac-crest bone grafting in ten. Union was achieved in 24 of the 25 feet (96%). Based on a clinical scale the results were excellent in 10 feet, good in 7, fair in 6, and poor in 2 and on the Angus and Cowell score they were good in 19 feet, fair in 4, and poor in 2. The two poor results were due to nonunion in one patient and reflex sympathetic dystrophy in the other. One reoperation was performed for nonunion. Eighteen patients (18 feet) were satisfied with the results, four were satisfied with reservations, and three were dissatisfied. Progressive ankle and midfoot arthritis did not occur in the absence of pre-existing degenerative changes in these joints. We conclude that isolated subtalar arthrodesis with internal compression was effective treatment for post-traumatic subtalar arthritis. Iliac-crest bone grafting was not routinely required.

We performed distal chevron osteotomy of the second, third, or fourth metatarsal for painful plantar callosities in 19 non-rheumatoid patients (16 women, 3 men; 21 feet); their mean age was 59 years (32 to 85). The mean follow-up was four years (2 to 7). The overall results were good in 16 feet, fair in two, and poor in three, with four patients still having painful plantar callosities. There was union in all feet, but transfer metatarsalgia developed in three and three required an orthosis. Distal chevron osteotomy for intractable plantar callosities was successful both clinically and radiologically in most patients.