Immunotherapy and Carbon Ion Radiotherapy In Solid Cancers With Stable Disease

Summary

Immunotherapy has become the standard of care in different advanced malignancies. Its effectiveness in the palliative setting was demonstrated by several phase III trials. However, the response rate varies according to the cancer under study and to the line of treatment. A potential way to improve the activity of single agent immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is to enhance the clinical response through further antitumor agents, including radiotherapy. Studies showed that carbon ions may lead to a broader immunogenic response; for their dosimetric characteristics it is possible to reduce integral dose sparing immune cells to direct and sustain a tumor specific immune response. Considering the available preclinical and clinical evidence together, the goal of this study is to explore the feasibility and the clinical activity of adding carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT), employed with a fractionation strategy comparable to stereotactic body radiation, to ICIs in advanced malignancies where immunotherapy is currently the standard of care.

Timeline

Start

2022-07-26

Primary completion

2025-08

Completion

2026-08

Publications

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• Background Dovedi SJ, Adlard AL, Lipowska-Bhalla G, McKenna C, Jones S, Cheadle EJ, Stratford IJ, Poon E, Morrow M, Stewart R, Jones H, Wilkinson RW, Honeychurch J, Illidge TM. Acquired resistance to fractionated radiotherapy can be overcome by concurrent PD-L1 blockade. Cancer Res. 2014 Oct 1;74(19):5458-68. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-1258.
• Background Tang C, Welsh JW, de Groot P, Massarelli E, Chang JY, Hess KR, Basu S, Curran MA, Cabanillas ME, Subbiah V, Fu S, Tsimberidou AM, Karp D, Gomez DR, Diab A, Komaki R, Heymach JV, Sharma P, Naing A, Hong DS. Ipilimumab with Stereotactic Ablative Radiation Therapy: Phase I Results and Immunologic Correlates from Peripheral T Cells. Clin Cancer Res. 2017 Mar 15;23(6):1388-1396. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-16-1432. Epub 2016 Sep 20.
• Background Eisenhauer EA, Therasse P, Bogaerts J, Schwartz LH, Sargent D, Ford R, Dancey J, Arbuck S, Gwyther S, Mooney M, Rubinstein L, Shankar L, Dodd L, Kaplan R, Lacombe D, Verweij J. New response evaluation criteria in solid tumours: revised RECIST guideline (version 1.1). Eur J Cancer. 2009 Jan;45(2):228-47. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2008.10.026.
• Background Wolchok JD, Hoos A, O'Day S, Weber JS, Hamid O, Lebbe C, Maio M, Binder M, Bohnsack O, Nichol G, Humphrey R, Hodi FS. Guidelines for the evaluation of immune therapy activity in solid tumors: immune-related response criteria. Clin Cancer Res. 2009 Dec 1;15(23):7412-20. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-09-1624. Epub 2009 Nov 24.
• Cavalieri S, Vitolo V, Barcellini A, Ronchi S, Facoetti A, Campo C, Klersy C, Molinelli S, Agustoni F, Ferretti VV, Silvestri A, Platania M, Del Vecchio M, Durante M, Helm A, Fournier C, Braud F, Pedrazzoli P, Orlandi E, Licitra L. Immune checkpoint inhibitors and Carbon iON radiotherapy In solid Cancers with stable disease (ICONIC). Future Oncol. 2023 Jan;19(3):193-203. doi: 10.2217/fon-2022-0503. Epub 2023 Mar 28.

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