Nivolumab After Cyclophosphamide and Doxorubicin Induction Therapy in NSCLC With PD-L1<10%

Summary

Nivolumab is now the standard of care for second-line treatment of advanced squamous or nonsquamous NSCLC regardless of the tumor's expression of PD-1L. CheckMate057 trial results showed that in unselected patients with advanced or recurrent nonsquamous NSCLC who had stopped responding to a platinum-based chemotherapy regimen, treatment with nivolumab produced significantly better overall survival during follow-up as long as 18 months, compared with a docetaxel-based regimen. But during the first 3 months on randomized treatment, 15 more patients died in the nivolumab arm than in the docetaxel arm. This quickly reversed during months 4-6 on treatment, when nine more patients died on docetaxel than on nivolumab. A post hoc analysis showed a trend to a higher risk for death during the first 3 months of nivolumab treatment among patients with poorer prognostic features, more aggressive disease, and low or no tumor expression of PD-L1. In addition, only a subgroup of patients benefits from nivolumab with response rates of 20% in unselected cohorts and 10% in low PD-L1 expression cohort. Strategies to render the tumor micro-environment (TME) more susceptible to anti-PD1 might include stimulation of anti-cancer immune responses by induction treatment with low dose chemotherapy. Given the potent immune-modulating effects and anti-tumor activity of cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin, Investigator propose a study of combining nivolumab with induction therapy with cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin for nonsquamous NSCLC with PD-L1 expression less than 10%.

Timeline

Start

2019-01-23

Primary completion

2022-05-31

Completion

2022-05-31

Drugs

Indications