Citations

131 Background: Trimodality therapy is the standard of care for patients with resectable cancer of the esophagus. However, patients ≥75 years have been underrepresented or excluded from landmark clinical trials to date. We investigated the feasibility and safety of treatment of esophageal cancer with trimodality therapy in patients’ ≥ 75 years. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of all patients ≥75 years who received trimodality therapy for esophageal cancer in 3 high volume tertiary cancer institutions from June 2007 to June 2013. All patients received neoadjuvant radiation with concomitant chemotherapy followed by esophagectomy. Toxicities and clinical outcomes were abstracted from the electronic medical record and partially from a prospectively maintained database. Overall and disease-free survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Five hundred seventy patients were treated with trimodality therapy for esophageal cancer from 2007-2013. Of these, 38 patients (7%) were 75 or older at the time of diagnosis. At diagnosis, comorbidities included coronary artery disease (32%), atrial fibrillation (11%) and COPD (13%). The majority of patients (87%) received 50.4Gy/28 fractions. 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)/cisplatin was the most common chemotherapy regimen (37%), followed by 5-FU/docetaxel (24%). A total of 13 patients (34%) developed acute grade ≥3 toxicity associated with neoadjuvant therapy. The most common acute grade 3 toxicities were haematological (10%), nausea (8%), esophagitis (5%) and fatigue (5%). Significant postoperative complications included respiratory (empyema, ARDS, pleural effusion) (39%), arrhythmia (32%), anastomotic leak (5%), and ileus (5%). There were 2 deaths (5%) within 90 days of surgery: one was secondary to empyema, the other developed DIC and sepsis. Median overall survival and disease free survival were 4.4 and 2.3 years respectively. Conclusions: Trimodality treatment is a reasonable approach for management of carefully selected elderly patients with esophageal cancer, with similar rates of cancer outcomes, and treatment related morbidity and mortality as compared to younger patients.

723 Background: The US FDA approved pembro for treating pts with 1) recurrent locally advanced or metastatic G/GEJ adenocarcinoma, whose disease has progressed on or after ≥2 prior therapies and whose tumors express PD-L1 (combined positive score [CPS] ≥1), and 2) unresectable or metastatic, microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) solid tumors that have progressed after prior therapy and who have no fitting options. We report Asian subgroup analyses from cohort 1 of KEYNOTE-059 (NCT02335411), a global, phase 2 study in advanced G/GEJ cancer. Methods: Eligible pts had measurable recurrent or metastatic G/GEJ adenocarcinoma whose disease has progressed on ≥2 prior chemotherapy regimens. Pts received pembro 200 mg Q3W up to 2 y. PD-L1+ tumors had a CPS ≥1. Primary end points were ORR (RECIST 1.1, by central review) and safety. Results: Cohort 1 enrolled 259 pts; 57% had PD-L1+ tumors. MSI status was evaluable in 174 tumor samples; of these, 7 were MSI-H. At data cutoff (4/21/2017), median (range) follow-up was 6 mo (1-25). Overall ORR was 12% (95% CI, 8-17) and median (range) DOR was 14 mo (2-19+). PFS6-mo rate was 15% and OS6-mo rate was 46%. In pts with PD-L1+ tumors, ORR was 16% (95% CI, 11-23) and median (range) DOR was 14 mo (3+-19+). In pts with PD-L1+ tumors, PFS6-mo rate was 20% and OS6-mo rate was 50%. In pts with MSI-H tumors, ORR was 57% (95% CI, 18-90) and median (range) DOR was not reached (5-14+ mo). In cohort 1, 41 pts were Asian and 218 pts were non-Asian. PD-L1+ tumors occurred in 42% of Asian pts and 60% of non-Asian pts. ORR was 12% (95% CI, 2-36) in Asian pts with PD-L1+ tumors and 17% (95% CI, 11-24) in non-Asian pts with PD-L1+ tumors. One of 7 pts with MSI-H tumors was Asian; this pt had CR. Grade 3-5 treatment-related AEs occurred in 17% and 18% of Asian and non-Asian pts, similar to the overall cohort. Conclusions: Pembro showed durable clinical benefit in previously treated pts with advanced G/GEJ cancer, especially those with PD-L1+ or MSI-H tumors. Safety and efficacy were similar in Asian and non-Asian pts. These findings highlight pembro as a standard treatment option in Asian and non-Asian pts with advanced G/GEJ cancer. Clinical trial information: NCT02335411.

This article discusses the requirements of a formal specification for the annotation of temporal information in clinical narratives. We discuss the implementation and extension of ISO-TimeML for annotating a corpus of clinical notes, known as the THYME corpus. To reflect the information task and the heavily inference-based reasoning demands in the domain, a new annotation guideline has been developed, “the THYME Guidelines to ISO-TimeML (THYME-TimeML)”. To clarify what relations merit annotation, we distinguish between linguistically-derived and inferentially-derived temporal orderings in the text. We also apply a top performing TempEval 2013 system against this new resource to measure the difficulty of adapting systems to the clinical domain. The corpus is available to the community and has been proposed for use in a SemEval 2015 task.

Background and Purpose— The American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) defines ideal cardiovascular health by 7 metrics: not smoking, regular physical activity, normal body mass index, blood pressure, plasma glucose, and total cholesterol levels, and a healthy diet. We assessed prevalence and predictors of ideal LS7 among US stroke survivors. Methods— Among 67 514 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2014, 1597 adults (≥18 years) had self-reported history of stroke. LS7 metrics were categorized as poor, intermediate, and ideal; ideal LS7 scores were calculated (1 point for each ideal metric met). Trends in poor, intermediate, and ideal cardiovascular health were assessed. Odds of low (0–1) versus high (≥4) ideal LS7 scores were assessed according to sex, race, poverty income ratio, and education level, before and after adjusting for covariates. Results— Only 1 participant met all ideal LS7 metrics. The proportion with low LS7 score increased from 17.9% in 1988 to 1994 to 35.4% in 2011 to 2014 ( P <0.001). Over that time frame, prevalence of poor blood pressure (≥140/90 mm Hg) and poor cholesterol (≥240 mg/dL) decreased (45.2%–26.5% and 37.2%–10.3%), whereas prevalence of poor body mass index (≥30 kg/m 2 ), poor diet (healthy eating index score <50), and poor physical activity (0 minutes moderate/vigorous activity per week) increased (26.9%–39.0%; 14.2%–50.6%; 44.6%–70.9%; all P <0.05). After adjustment, black race (odds ratio, 2.29; 95% CI, 1.17–4.48), poverty income ratio ≤200% (odds ratio, 2.20, 95% CI, 1.11–4.36), and ≤12th grade education (odds ratio, 4.50; 95% CI, 2.27–8.92) were associated with low ideal LS7 scores. Conclusions— Over the past 3 decades, blood pressure and cholesterol control among stroke survivors improved, but rates of obesity, poor diet, and physical inactivity increased. Stroke survivors who are black, poor, or less educated are less likely to have ideal cardiovascular health.