Treatment Duration for Nivolumab in Advanced NSCLC: CheckMate 153
Posted: Friday, October 23, 2020
Continuation of nivolumab treatment for more than 1 year appears to improve patients' outcomes with previously treated advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with a fixed-dose regimen. David R. Spigel, MD, of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, Nashville, and colleagues published this analysis of the CheckMate 153 trial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
“This study provides valuable insight into treatment duration for patients with NSCLC and may inform treatment decisions for clinicians,” concluded the authors.
This community-based phase IIIb/IV study centered on 1,428 patients with previously treated advanced NSCLC were given nivolumab. Patients received 3 mg/kg of nivolumab every 2 weeks. After 1 year of therapy, 252 patients remained on the study therapy and were randomly assigned either to continue treatment with nivolumab (n = 127) or to stop treatment (n = 125).
After a minimum follow-up of 13.5 months, 89 patients receiving continuous nivolumab and 85 patients who had discontinued treatment had no evidence of disease progression (progression-free survival population). The median progression-free survival was significantly longer among patients treated continuously (24.7 months) than those who stopped treatment (9.4 months, hazard ratio = 0.56). Of note, patients who had stable disease at the time of random assignment had similar progression-free survival with either continual treatment or cessation of treatment (11.8 months and 9.4 months, respectively). The median overall survival from the treatment assignment time was not yet reached in the group receiving continuous therapy and was 32.5 months in the group that stopped nivolumab treatment (hazard ratio = 0.61).
Of note, patients continuing on nivolumab therapy had a higher incidence of any-grade adverse events (32.3%) than those stopping nivolumab (15.2%), which was considered consistent with the longer treatment duration. There were no new safety signals among patients in either study group.
Disclosure: For a full list of authors’ disclosures, visit ascopubs.org.
