A Feasibility Study of Chemo-radiotherapy to Treat Operable Oesophageal Cancer

Summary

About 7500 patients are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer each year in the UK of which less than a quarter have resectable disease at diagnosis. There is a general lack of consistency in the standard of care for patients across UK hospitals. Patients are either treated with a) chemotherapy followed by surgical removal of the tumour, or b) chemoradiotherapy followed by removal of the tumour by surgery, as part of their standard of care. Recent research supports the latter treatment, as chemoradiotherapy maybe more effective at shrinking the tumour and preventing the disease from spreading than taking chemotherapy alone. However, there is no definitive way of identifying which treatment is best without a clinical trial. Evidence suggests that the effect of the chemoradiotherapy currently used as standard practice may be improved and the side effects reduced by using a different chemoradiotherapy combination. In this trial, eligible patients will receive 2 cycles of the same chemotherapy before being randomised to receive two different chemoradiotherapy regimens (carboplatin and paclitaxel verses oxaliplatin and capecitabine) both of which have shown promising results in previous studies. Patients will then have their tumour removed. The best chemoradiotherapy regimen will then be taken forward to a Phase III trial in which chemoradiotherapy will be compared with chemotherapy alone. The efficacy of the regimens will be measured by counting the number of patients who i) remain free from cancer, ii)have local or distant spread of their cancer, iii) are successfully recruited and iv) experience toxicities. A specific set of toxicity criteria will be used to monitor any treatment induced side-effects and provide justification for any necessary dose modifications or withdrawal of treatment.

Timeline

Start

2013-10

Primary completion

2015-05

Completion

2016-05

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

paper Only CarPacRT passed the predefined pCR criteria for further investigation. PMID 28335886 ↗

Publications

• Mukherjee S, Hurt C, Radhakrishna G, Gwynne S, Bateman A, Gollins S, Hawkins MA, Canham J, Grabsch HI, Falk S, Sharma RA, Ray R, Roy R, Cox C, Maynard N, Nixon L, Sebag-Montefiore DJ, Maughan T, Griffiths GO, Crosby TDL. Oxaliplatin/capecitabine or carboplatin/paclitaxel-based preoperative chemoradiation for resectable oesophageal adenocarcinoma (NeoSCOPE): Long-term results of a randomised controlled trial. Eur J Cancer. 2021 Aug;153:153-161. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2021.05.020. Epub 2021 Jun 20.
• Mukherjee S, Hurt CN, Gwynne S, Sebag-Montefiore D, Radhakrishna G, Gollins S, Hawkins M, Grabsch HI, Jones G, Falk S, Sharma R, Bateman A, Roy R, Ray R, Canham J, Griffiths G, Maughan T, Crosby T. NEOSCOPE: A randomised phase II study of induction chemotherapy followed by oxaliplatin/capecitabine or carboplatin/paclitaxel based pre-operative chemoradiation for resectable oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Eur J Cancer. 2017 Mar;74:38-46. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2016.11.031. Epub 2017 Feb 8.
• Mukherjee S, Hurt CN, Gwynne S, Bateman A, Gollins S, Radhakrishna G, Hawkins M, Canham J, Lewis W, Grabsch HI, Sharma RA, Wade W, Maggs R, Tranter B, Roberts A, Sebag-Montefiore D, Maughan T, Griffiths G, Crosby T. NEOSCOPE: a randomised Phase II study of induction chemotherapy followed by either oxaliplatin/capecitabine or paclitaxel/carboplatin based chemoradiation as pre-operative regimen for resectable oesophageal adenocarcinoma. BMC Cancer. 2015 Feb 12;15:48. doi: 10.1186/s12885-015-1062-y.

Drugs

Indications