Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke, MD, on Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma: New Data on Erdafitinib vs Chemotherapy From the THOR Study
2023 ASCO Annual Meeting
Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings showing that for patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma and FGFR alteration who already had been treated with a PD-(L)1 inhibitor, erdafitinib significantly improved overall and progression-free survival, as well as overall response rate, compared with investigator’s choice of chemotherapy (LBA4619).
Transcript
Disclaimer: This video transcript has not been proofread or edited and may contain errors.
Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke:
We now have results from the THOR clinical trial studying erdafitinib in patients who have metastatic surgically unresectable urothelial carcinoma, who've received prior therapy for their tumor. This is the first clinical trial, showing proof of concept benefit from FGF targeted therapy, compared to what's been observed with chemotherapy.
The design of the trial takes patients who've had prior treatment, typically chemotherapy with platinum or carboplatinum, and patients may have had an immune checkpoint inhibitor. There are two cohorts to this trial. The cohort being presented is the group of patients who've had a prior immune checkpoint inhibitor. Patients were randomized between either erdafitinib alone or single agent taxane, or vinflunine, which is approved in Europe. And the results of the trial looked quite good indeed, with it hitting on all three endpoints.
The primary endpoint of the trial was median overall survival, and erdafitinib came in with a statistically significant improvement in overall survival with a median overall survival of 12 months compared to single agent chemotherapy, which was around 7.8 months. We also saw evidence of benefit in progression-free survival and overall survival. The progression-free survival with erdafitinib was around five and a half months. Single agent chemotherapy was half that amount, and the objective response rate for erdafitinib was around 45%, so that's 45% PRs and CRs, while single agent chemotherapy had a response rate of around 11%.
The toxicity reported is similar to what has been observed with other clinical trials of FGF targeted therapy, and as a result of this work, erdafitinib is here to stay as part of the standard armamentarium for the treatment of our urothelial cancer patients.
Related Videos
The ASCO Post Staff
Amer Methqal Zeidan, MBBS, MHS, of Yale University and Yale Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings on the first-in-class telomerase inhibitor imetelstat, which was given to patients with heavily transfusion-dependent non-del(5q) lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes that are resistant to erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. Imetelstat resulted in a significant and sustained red blood cell (RBC) transfusion independence in 40% of these heavily transfused patients. The response was also durable and accompanied by an impressive median hemoglobin rise of 3.6 g/dL, and seen in patients with and without ring sideroblasts. Importantly, reduced variant allele frequency was observed in the most commonly mutated myeloid genes which correlated with duration of transfusion independence and hemoglobin rise, therefore suggesting a disease-modifying potential of this agent (Abstract 7004).
The ASCO Post Staff
Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, of Melanoma Institute Australia and The University of Sydney, discusses new data showing that patients with resected stage IIB/C melanoma who were treated with adjuvant nivolumab had prolonged recurrence-free survival compared with placebo across all biomarker subgroups. The baseline biomarkers most predictive of prolonged recurrence-free survival with nivolumab were high interferon gamma score, high tumor mutational burden, CD8 T-cell infiltration, and low C-reactive protein (Abstract 9504).
The ASCO Post Staff
Tycel J. Phillips, MD, and Alex F. Herrera, MD, both of the City of Hope National Medical Center, discuss results from the SWOG S1826 study, which showed that nivolumab and AVD (doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) improved progression-free survival vs brentuximab vedotin plus AVD in patients with advanced-stage classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Longer follow-up is needed to assess overall survival and patient-reported outcomes. This trial may be a key step toward harmonizing the pediatric and adult treatment of advanced-stage disease (LBA4).
The ASCO Post Staff
Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD, of Stanford University Medical Center, and Zeynep Eroglu, MD, of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, discusses phase II findings showing that in patients with BRAF-mutant metastatic melanoma, dabrafenib plus trametinib and navitoclax (DTN) was associated with a complete response rate of 20% and an overall response rate of 84%. Additionally, there was a trend toward improved overall survival in patients treated with DTN compared with dabrafenib plus trametinib alone; the difference in overall survival was more pronounced in patients with a smaller tumor burden (Abstract 9511).
The ASCO Post Staff
Paula Aristizabal, MD, MAS, of the University of California, San Diego, and Rady Children’s Hospital, talks about using a health systems strengthening approach to improve leukemia care and survival in a public Mexican hospital in the region of the border between the United States and Mexico. The demonstrated increase in overall survival across a decade after implementation of the program seems to validate the use of such models, not only to improve clinical outcomes, but also to build sustainable hospital capacity, financially and organizationally (Abstract 1502).
