Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, on Melanoma: Distant Metastasis–Free Survival With Adjuvant Pembrolizumab
2022 ASCO Annual Meeting
Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, of the Melanoma Institute Australia, The University of Sydney, discusses phase III findings from the KEYNOTE-716 study. The trial showed that compared with placebo, adjuvant pembrolizumab significantly improved distant metastasis–free survival in patients with resected stage IIB and IIC melanoma. The findings also suggest a continued reduction in the risk of recurrence and a favorable benefit-risk profile (Abstract LBA9500).
Transcript
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Keynote 716 is a phase three randomized trial of adjuvant pembrolizumab versus placebo in resected stage 2B and 2C melanoma. Historically from retrospective studies, stage 2B and C melanoma has been thought to be not as high risk as it actually is. In fact, many patients recur at 24 months and beyond, and these patients have very poor outcomes. So I'm reporting the distant metastasis free survival from this trial. We've previously reported on the relapse free survival on two previous analyses. And what we see is pembrolizumab significantly improves the distant metastasis free survival compared with placebo with a hazard ratio of 0.64, this represents a 36% reduction in the risk of recurrence, and a P value of 0.0029. This is highly significant. We also see on the 24 month and the 12 month landmark distant metastasis free survival rates, a significant increase compared with placebo of pembrolizumab. What's more in this study when we look at the subgroups, key subgroups, every subgroup favors pembrolizumab compared with placebo for the distant metastasis free survival, including the T subcategories 3B, 4A and 4B, as well as the US geographical region. We also see a sustained improvement in the relapse free survival. So at this analysis, this is the third analysis for the relapse free survival. It was the first for distant metastasis free survival. We see a hazard ratio of 0.64 and continued separation of the Kaplan-Meier curves for the relapse-free survival, meaning that adjuvant pembrolizumab significantly decreases the risk of recurrence for patients with resected stage 2B and 2C melanoma. So what are the next steps? The next steps are that we will continue to follow up with this trial and look at the overall survival benefit. In the design of this trial, we had crossover at recurrence. So patients were initially randomized to placebo versus pembrolizumab. But if they recurred, they were unblinded. If they were on the placebo arm or on the pembrolizumab arm, and they had their last dose of pembrolizumab six months or further prior, they were eligible to cross over to pembrolizumab. So we'll also be watching for the overall survival in the coming years. The take home message is that adjuvant pembrolizumab significantly improves both the relapse free survival and the distant metastasis free survival, and should be considered for patients with resected stage 2B and 2C melanoma.
The ASCO Post Staff
Stephen M. Ansell, PhD, MD, of Mayo Clinic, discusses updated data from the ECHELON-1 trial, which showed that, when administered to patients with stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma, the combination of brentuximab vedotin, doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (A+AVD) vs doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine resulted in a 41% reduction in the risk of death. These outcomes, says Dr. Ansell, confirm A+AVD as a preferred option for previously untreated disease (Abstract 7503).
The ASCO Post Staff
Maxwell Oluwole Akanbi, MD, PhD, of McLaren Regional Medical Center, discusses the study he conducted, using the SEER database, to evaluate the impact of lung cancer screening recommendations on low-dose CT scanning. The data suggest that guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force led to a more rapid decline in the incidence of advanced disease in the United States, especially among minority populations (Abstract 10506).
The ASCO Post Staff
Etienne Brain, MD, PhD, of the Institut Curie, discusses phase III findings from the Unicancer ASTER 70s trial, in which patients aged 70 or older with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and a high genomic grade index received adjuvant endocrine therapy with or without chemotherapy. The data did not find a statistically significant overall survival benefit with this treatment after surgery (Abstract 500).
The ASCO Post Staff
Bradley J. Monk, MD, of the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Creighton University School of Medicine, discusses phase III findings from the ATHENA–MONO (GOG-3020/ENGOT-ov45) trial. It showed that rucaparib as first-line maintenance treatment, following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, improved progression-free survival in patients with ovarian cancer, irrespective of homologous recombination deficiency status (Abstract LBA5500).
The ASCO Post Staff
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses findings from the COSMIC-021 study, which showed that cabozantinib plus atezolizumab demonstrated encouraging clinical activity with manageable toxicity in patients with inoperable locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. The combination was administered as first-line therapy in cisplatin-based chemotherapy–eligible and –ineligible patients and as second- or later-line treatment in those who received prior immune checkpoint inhibitors (Abstract 4504).