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S. Mennella



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    MA10 - Facing the Real World: New Staging System and Response Evaluation in Immunotherapy (ID 393)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Mini Oral Session
    • Track: Radiology/Staging/Screening
    • Presentations: 2
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      MA10.09 - Comparison between CT Scan Evaluation Criteria and PERCIST for Evaluation of Immune Check-Point Inhibitors Response (ID 6227)

      14:20 - 15:50  |  Author(s): S. Mennella

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background:
      Immune check-point inhibitors (ICPIs) exert their activity by blocking inhibitory signaling and therefore enhancing T-cell activity against tumor cells; however, this peculiar mechanism of action might lead to many difficulties in evaluating clinical response with the usual CT imaging due to inflammatory patterns that could confuse the evaluation. The aim of this study was to assess the role of FDG-PET to support clinical decision based on CT scan.

      Methods:
      From May 2015 to April 2016, 74 patients with advanced pretreated NSCLC received at least one dose of nivolumab (3 mg/Kg every 14 days) within a single-institutional translational research trial. Among these, 58 patients were evaluable for response assessment. The patients underwent CT scan and FDG-PET every four cycles and, in case of progressive disease, an additional evaluation was performed after two further cycles in order to confirm it. We evaluated the response to treatment by CT scan with RECIST criteria, Immuno-related Response Criteria (irRC), WHO criteria and immunoRECIST criteria, while the metabolic response has been determined with PERCIST criteria. Finally, we determined the concordance in terms of response between CT evaluation criteria and metabolic response obtained with PERCIST; concordance was calculated with kappa value.

      Results:
      Our findings showed a low concordance of all CT scan evaluation criteria to PERCIST, the best concordance being between PERCIST and RECIST (K=0.500) and the worst agreement being between PERCIST and irRC (K=0.295) . In particular, PERCIST seems to underestimate the progressive disease (PD). In fact, between 46% and 55% of patients, defined in progression with CT evaluation criteria were considered in stable metabolic disease (SMD) by PERCIST; among these, 50% of patients in the RECIST PD group and 80% of RECIST SD patients were alive at 6 months. Furthermore, in our sample, between 9% and 18% of patients were considered in progression with CT evaluation criteria when they were in partial response with PERCIST; these patients were still alive with a survival similar to those who defined in partial response with RECIST (>9 months).

      Conclusion:
      FDG-PET evaluation by PERCIST could not be helpful when SMD is reported, in fact, patients that have a RECIST PD maintain a poor prognosis compared to RECIST SD between the patients define as SMD. Conversely, PERCIST evaluation could be informative when it define a partial response, specially when RECIST criteria show a PD.

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      MA10.11 - Comparison among Different Radiological Criteria for Assessing Response to Nivolumab in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (ID 6181)

      14:20 - 15:50  |  Author(s): S. Mennella

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background:
      Immune check-point inhibitors have dramatically changed the management of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, their mechanism of action creates concerns on the most appropriate method to determine radiological responses to this drug class. The aim of this study is to compare a set of different evaluation criteria for patients receiving nivolumab for advanced NSCLC.

      Methods:
      Patients with pre-treated advanced NSCLC were enrolled in a single-institutional translational research study in the San Martino Hospital – National Institute for Cancer Research, Genova, Italy and received nivolumab (3 mg/kg every 14 days). Computed tomography (CT) was performed at baseline and after every 4 administrations. The assessments were performed according to Immune-related response criteria (irRC), response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST 1.1), World Health Organization (WHO), and immune-related RECIST (irRECIST), which are recently proposed based on the original RECIST with the following differences derived by irRC: 1) new lesions do not automatically define progressive disease (PD), but are added to the target lesions count; 2) PD has to be confirmed with a subsequent CT-scan after 2 additional cycles. The concordance among the different criteria was determined with Cohen’s kappa coefficient (K).

      Results:
      Fifty-two patients were eligible: median age= 70 years (44-85); male/female: 70%/30%; current or former smokers= 87%; non-squamous/squamous histology= 79%/21%; median number of cycles= 6 (4-29). The following responses were observed:

      Partial Response Stable Disease Progressive Disease
      First evaluation (4 cycles)
      RECIST 1.1 4 (7.7%) 19 (36.5%) 29 (55.8%)
      irRC 3 (5.8%) 23 (44.2%) 26 (50%)
      WHO 3 (5.8%) 20 (38.5%) 29 (55.8%)
      irRECIST 4 (7.6%) 24 (46.2%) 24 (46.2%)
      Best Response
      Partial Response Stable Disease Progressive Disease
      RECIST 1.1 9 (17.3%) 14 (26.9%) 29 (55.8%)
      irRC 8 (15.4%) 19 (36.5%) 25 (48.1%)
      WHO 7 (13.5%) 17 (32.7%) 28 (53.8%)
      irRECIST 11 (21.2%) 18 (34.6%) 23 (44.2%)
      Generally, the concordance between first evaluation and best response was good for all the criteria (K ranging from 0.783 to 0.839); the concordance between irRECIST and irRC was high (K= 0.828) and RECIST 1.1 had a good concordance with IRC (K= 0.734), irRECIST (K= 0.767), and WHO (0.766).

      Conclusion:
      The different response assessment methods were generally concordant. Since response is more easily assessed with irRECIST than with irRC, the former might be proposed as an appropriate method of response evaluation.

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    P3.02c - Poster Session with Presenters Present (ID 472)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Poster Presenters Present
    • Track: Advanced NSCLC
    • Presentations: 1
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      P3.02c-036 - Management of Early Disease Progression during Treatment of Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer with Nivolumab (ID 6249)

      14:30 - 15:45  |  Author(s): S. Mennella

      • Abstract

      Background:
      Immune check-point inhibitors have recently become a cornerstone of the management of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The peculiar mechanism of action of this drug class implies the possibility to treat patients beyond progressive disease (PD) on the basis of parameters such as the observation of clinical benefit or mild progression at computed tomography scan (CT-scan); however, a guideline for managing early PD during cancer immunotherapy has not been clearly defined yet. The aim of this study is to evaluate the approaches to patients experiencing early PD during treatment with nivolumab for advanced NSCLC.

      Methods:
      Patients treated with nivolumab (3 mg/Kg every 14 days) for advanced NSCLC between April 2015 and May 2016 within a single-institutional translational research study conducted in the San Martino Hospital – National Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy (approved by the local ethical committee) were considered eligible if their first response assessment (after 4 cycles) was PD. The response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST) and the immune-related response criteria (irRC) were employed. Since IRC imply the confirmation of PD after 2 further cycles, a cut-off of 6 cycles was set to define the patients who continued nivolumab beyond progression.

      Results:
      Globally, 31 patients were eligible: median age= 69 years (50-81); males/females= 74%/26%; current or former smokers= 90%; non-squamous/squamous histology= 67%/33%; 25 patients had PD as first evaluation with both criteria, while 4 had PD only with RECIST and 2 had PD only with IRC. With RECIST, 35% of the patients received nivolumab beyond progression (median= 10 cycles) and 80% of such patients were alive at the time of the analysis; on the contrary, only 53% of the patients who discontinued nivolumab at PD were still alive at the time of the analysis. With irRC, 30% of the patients received nivolumab beyond progression (median= 10 cycles) and 75% of such patients were alive at the time of the analysis, compared to only 47% of the patients who discontinued nivolumab at PD. The decision of continuing nivolumab beyond PD was based on the reported clinical benefit (67%), on the observation of a very limited progression at the CT-scan (22%) or on discordance between response criteria (11%).

      Conclusion:
      Administering nivolumab beyond progression might influence the outcomes of selected patients. Additional parameters for discriminating which patients are going to benefit from nivolumab continuation need to be investigated.