Articles related to CHEMOTHERAPY

The addition of the PD-1 inhibitor serplulimab to chemotherapy significantly prolonged survival compared with chemotherapy alone as first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). Interim analysis of the phase 3 ASTRUM-005 study – comparing serplumimab plus chemotherapy to chemotherapy alone in 1st line extensive stage SCLC – showed a median OS of 15.4 months with serplulimab compared with 10.9 months with placebo. Patients who received serplulimab also had significantly longer median progression-free survival (PFS) 5.8 vs. 4.3 months respectively. The study included 585 patients with untreated extensive stage-SCLC, were randomized 2:1 to serplulimab (4.5 mg/kg) or placebo every 3 weeks. All patients received carboplatin and etoposide every 3 weeks for up to four cycles.

Three-hundred-twenty-four (324) patients with stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma were treated with induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy (INCT-CRT) or chemoradiotherapy followed by consolidation chemotherapy (CRT-CNCT). Patients then underwent total mesorectal excision (TME) or were assigned to a watch-and-wait status on the basis of tumor response. Three-year TME-free survival was 41% in the INCT-CRT group and 53% in the CRT-CNCT group. Organ preservation is achievable in half of the patients with rectal cancer treated with total neoadjuvant therapy, without an apparent detriment in survival.

This multicenter, open-label, randomized phase III trial conducted in Japan compared 3 versus 6 months of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with curatively resected stage III colon cancer. Study participants received either a modified fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin, regimen, or capecitabine and oxaliplatin (CAPOX) regimen. Five-year OS rates were comparable between the two groups: 87.0% in the 3-month treatment group and 86.4% in the 6-month treatment group. Peripheral sensory neuropathy lasting longer than 5 years was twice as common in the 6- compared with 3-month treatment group (16% v 8%, respectively) and in those receiving mFOLFOX6 compared with CAPOX (14% v 11%, respectively).

With a median follow-up of more than 2.5 years, sintilimab added to chemotherapy improved OS in patients with advanced, nonsquamous NSCLC. The median OS was 24.2 months with sintilimab and 16.8 months with chemotherapy alone. Nearly half of patients in the chemotherapy-only arm crossed over to receive sintilimab after disease progression. When the data were adjusted for the crossover effect, the OS benefit derived from sintilimab was more pronounced.

In this trial of nivolumab + chemotherapy vs. chemotherapy alone, nivolumab prolonged EFS by nearly 11 months and improved the pathologic complete response rate more than tenfold. There was also a trend toward improved OS with nivolumab. The study also reported an EFS improvement with nivolumab in both squamous and non-squamous NSCLC. Grade 3-4 treatment-related adverse events occurred in 34% of patients in the nivolumab arm and 37% of those in the chemotherapy-alone arm.

Nivolumab plus ipilimumab added to standard of care chemotherapy did not improve outcomes as 1st line therapy for unresectable or metastatic bladder cancers with PD-L1 expression > 1%.