WCLC 2019 Day 3 news highlights: IMpower131 and CheckMate trial results
On the final day of the IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer (7–8 September, Barcelona, Spain) find out what have been the key headlines from the last press conference.
CheckMate 017/057 data highlights five-fold increase in overall survival for nivolumab arm
Pooled data from the CheckMate 017/057 Phase III trials has demonstrated that non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients taking nivolumab experienced a five-fold increase in 5-year survival rates compared with those patients administered the chemotherapy docetaxel.
The two trials included 854 patients with advanced NSCLC patients, at the 5-year follow-up 50 nivolumab patients and nine docetaxel patients were alive.
Nivolumab also continued to show long-term progression-free survival benefit compared to docetaxel with progression-free survival rates of 8% compared to 0%.
“CheckMate 017 and 057 are the first Phase III trials to report 5-year outcomes for a PD-1 inhibitor in previously treated advanced NSCLC, demonstrating a greater than five-fold increase in 5-year overall survival rates with nivolumab (13.4%) compared with docetaxel (2.6%). Nivolumab remained well tolerated with no new safety signals,” commented Scott Gettinger of Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center (CT, USA).
Final overall survival results reported from IMpower131
IMpower131 is a Phase III multi-center trial investigating the immunotherapy atezolizumab and chemotherapy against chemotherapy alone as first-line therapy for Stage IV squamous NSCLC. Results presented at the conference have highlighted the overall survival benefits.
A total of 343 patients in Arm B received atezolizumab + carboplatin + nab-paclitaxel 100 mg/m2 qw. There were 340 patients enrolled in Arm C who received carboplatin + nab-paclitaxel for four or six cycles followed by best supportive care.
The proportion of patients with high positive or negative PD-L1 expression was similar between arms. Median overall survival in the Intention to Treat population was 14.2 months in Arm B vs 13.5 months in Arm C. In the PD-L1–high subgroup, median overall survival was 23.4 vs 10.2 months, respectively.
“The study provides additional evidence on the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with lung cancer. The strong benefit observed in high PD-L1 expressors highlights relevance of biomarkers for patient selection,” F. Cappuzzo from Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale della Romagna (Italy) commented.
