Total Neoadjuvant Treatment With or Without Tislelizumab for Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer.

Summary

This prospective, multi-center, phase II randomized controlled trial will evaluate the actual benefit of adding immunotherapy with tislelizumab to the currently most effective approach against LARC, namely TNT. In this trial, we will harness several elements that may each potentially contribute to an overall high efficacy, at least in local outcomes: nCRT rather than SCRT, full length (8 cycles of mFOLFOX6) of consolidation chemotherapy, CIMT following nCRT (exploiting the upregulation of the immune response induced by the latter) and tislelizumab (with its theoretical advantage over other CPIs). In line with the changing treatment paradigms in LARC, in which high therapeutic efficacy translates into the possibility to avoid TME, the trial will have a novel primary endpoint of long-term unmaintained cCR, i.e. 3 year TME-free survival.

Timeline

Start

2025-07-23

Primary completion

2029-08

Completion

2030-08

Publications

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• Background Lin Z, Cai M, Zhang P, Li G, Liu T, Li X, Cai K, Nie X, Wang J, Liu J, Liu H, Zhang W, Gao J, Wu C, Wang L, Fan J, Zhang L, Wang Z, Hou Z, Ma C, Yang K, Wu G, Tao K, Zhang T. Phase II, single-arm trial of preoperative short-course radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy and camrelizumab in locally advanced rectal cancer. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 Nov;9(11):e003554. doi: 10.1136/jitc-2021-003554.
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• Background Sauer R, Becker H, Hohenberger W, Rodel C, Wittekind C, Fietkau R, Martus P, Tschmelitsch J, Hager E, Hess CF, Karstens JH, Liersch T, Schmidberger H, Raab R; German Rectal Cancer Study Group. Preoperative versus postoperative chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer. N Engl J Med. 2004 Oct 21;351(17):1731-40. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa040694.
• Background Lin ZY, Zhang P, Chi P, Xiao Y, Xu XM, Zhang AM, Qiu XF, Wu JX, Yuan Y, Wang ZN, Qu XJ, Li X, Nie X, Yang M, Cai KL, Zhang WK, Huang Y, Sun Z, Hou ZG, Ma C, Cheng FZ, Tao KX, Zhang T. Neoadjuvant short-course radiotherapy followed by camrelizumab and chemotherapy in locally advanced rectal cancer (UNION): early outcomes of a multicenter randomized phase III trial. Ann Oncol. 2024 Oct;35(10):882-891. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2024.06.015. Epub 2024 Jul 2.
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• Background Goffredo P, Quezada-Diaz FF, Garcia-Aguilar J, Smith JJ. Non-Operative Management of Patients with Rectal Cancer: Lessons Learnt from the OPRA Trial. Cancers (Basel). 2022 Jun 30;14(13):3204. doi: 10.3390/cancers14133204.

Drugs

Indications