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R. Stahel

Moderator of

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    SC15 - Clinical Trials: How to Set Priorities? (ID 339)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Science Session
    • Track: Trial Design/Statistics
    • Presentations: 5
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      SC15.01 - The American Perspective (ID 6658)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): S.S. Ramalingam

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract:
      The treatment of lung cancer has changed dramatically in the past few years. From a time when treatment decisions were made without regard to histology or genotype, an era of personalized therapy, at least for a subset of patients with lung cancer, is a reality. The treatment of EGFR mutation-positive patients with EGFR inhibitors has resulted in significant improvements in outcomes over standard chemotherapy. Similarly, for patients with ALK- and ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), targeted therapies have proven to be superior. However, for patients with KRAS mutations, which are seen in approximately 25-30% of lung adenocarcinomas, there is no effective targeted therapy option. For nearly 70% of patients with NSCLC, systemic chemotherapy remains the standard approach. The emergence of immune-checkpoint inhibitors has resulted in considerable change in the treatment algorithm for advanced NSCLC. These agents are now preferred salvage therapy after progression following platinum-based chemotherapy. As immunotherapy moves to the first-line therapy setting for advanced NSCLC, it is anticipated that at least 25-30% of the patients without a driver mutation will be treated with immune-checkpoint inhibitors. All of these exciting developments call for careful evaluation of ongoing and planned clinical trials, so that appropriate new priorities are established. The newly established NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) includes all the adult cancer cooperative groups (ALLIANCE, ECOG-ACRIN, SWOG, & NRG Oncology) is actively engaged in conducting the new generation of clinical trials for lung cancer. Despite, the success with targeted agents in advanced stage NSCLC, patients do not achieve a cure. Using these agents in early stage NSCLC provides the best chance for a cure. The ALCHEMIST study has been launched by the NCTN to evaluate personalized adjuvant therapy for early stage NSCLC. In this study, patients with early-stage lung cancer (stages IB, II and IIIA) are treated with systemic chemotherapy after surgical resection, as per standard of care. Subsequently, their tumor is subjected to molecular testing. Patients with ALK-positive disease are randomized to treatment with crizotinib or placebo. Patients with EGFR mutations are randomized to erlotinib or placebo. Patients who are negative for EGFR and ALK, are randomized to nivolumab or observation. These studies will evaluate the effect of the personalized adjuvant therapy on overall survival and disease-free survival. Another ongoing effort is to understand the therapeutic value of targeted strategies in patients with advanced stage squamous cell lung cancer. The lung-MAP study enrolls patients with advanced stage squamous NSCLC. Following next-gen sequencing, patients with selected targets are treated with an appropriate targeted agent. The study includes a phase 2 component, which can be rapidly adapted to phase 3 if a agent demonstrates the pre-defined level of efficacy. This trial is also designed to accelerate the development of treatments leading to full approval by the FDA by shortening timelines. These individualized treatment approaches based on genotype are likely to answer important questions in a definitive manner. As immunotherapy becomes integrated in the standard treatment paradigms, considerable changes are also warranted for patients without driver mutations. For a subset of patients, as immunotherapy becomes the first line treatment in the advanced stage disease setting, the role of platinum-based chemotherapy in the second line needs to be investigated. It is also important to evaluate the need for continued immunotherapy after disease progression when patients are switched to chemotherapy. Another key question relates to the duration of therapy for patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors. Appropriately designed trials to understand the optimum duration of therapy will optimize benefits, reduce toxicity, and decrease cost. Combination strategies using immune checkpoint inhibitors with chemotherapy and other targeted agents is also an important area of priority. The role of biomarkers to select therapy is another critical research priority. We should also make efforts to improve the percentage of patients enrolled to clinical trials. A major reason for this is the stringent eligibility criteria that excludes a significant proportion of patients in order to select the ‘fittest’ candidates for clinical trials. While this is certainly appropriate in early phase drug development, if patients enrolled in clinical trials do not represent the ‘real-world’ patient population, the applicability of the results are limited. The next wave of clinical trials should also take into consideration the impact of new treatments on the overall cost of care and the clinical significance of improvements in efficacy. The national Cooperative groups in the United States are committed to a collaborative approach to address key research questions and improve outcomes for lung cancer.

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      SC15.02 - The European Perspective (ID 6659)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): R. Stahel

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract not provided

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      SC15.03 - The Chinese Perspective (ID 6660)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): Y.-. Wu

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract not provided

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      SC15.04 - The Japanese Perspective (ID 6661)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): Y. Ohe

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract:
       In Japan, several cooperative study groups, such as Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG), West Japan Oncology Group (WJOG), North East Japan Study Group (NEJ), Thoracic Oncology Research Group (TORG), Tokyo Cooperative Cooperative Oncology Group (TCOG), Oncology Group in Kyushu (LOGiK), Okayama Lung Cancer Study Group (OLCSG) and so on are conducting investigator initiated cooperative clinical studies for lung cancer. Phase 3 studies are mainly conducted by JCOG, WJOG and NEJ. JCOG and WJOG are conducting intergroup phase 3 studies for lung cancer. More recently, multi-group phase 3 studies are also started.  JCOG is a multicenter clinical study group for cancer treatment fully funded by the national research grants in Japan. The goal of the JCOG is to establish effective standard treatments for various types of malignant tumors by conducting nationwide multicenter clinical trials, and to improve the quality and outcome of the management of cancer patients. JCOG consists of 16 subgroups and JCOG Lung Cancer Study Group (JCOG-LCSG) consists of 44 institutions, was established in 1982. JCOG also have JCOG Lung Cancer Surgical Study Group (JCOG-LCSSG) established in 1986.  Only JCOG is supported by no industries but National Cancer Center and grants of Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED). Thus, JCOG studies are conducting completely independent from pharmaceutical companies. Other groups are supported by mainly pharmaceutical companies and grants of AMED. JCOG-LCSG has been conducting many randomized trials for small cell lung cancer and elderly non-small cell lung cancer. In case of JCOG-LCSG, protocol concepts are discussing in the group meeting held every 3 months. The protocol concept agreed in the group meeting will discuss in JCOG Protocol Review Committee and finally approved by JCOG Steering Committee. Kawano Y, Okamoto I, Fukuda H, et al. Current status and future perspectives of cooperative study groups for lung cancer in Japan. Respir Investig 52: 339-347, 2014.

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      SC15.05 - The South American Perspective (ID 6662)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): G. Castro

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract not provided

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Author of

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    P1.02 - Poster Session with Presenters Present (ID 454)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Poster Presenters Present
    • Track: Biology/Pathology
    • Presentations: 1
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      P1.02-025 - Evaluation of NGS and RT-PCR Methods for ALK Assessment in European NSCLC Patients: Results from the ETOP Lungscape Project (ID 5001)

      14:30 - 15:45  |  Author(s): R. Stahel

      • Abstract

      Background:
      The reported prevalence of ALK rearrangement in NSCLC ranges from 2%-7%, depending on population and detection method. The primary standard diagnostic method is fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Recently, immunohistochemistry (IHC) has also proven to be a reproducible and sensitive technique. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been advocated and most recently the advent of targeted Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) for ALK and other fusions has become possible. This is one of the first studies comparing all 4 techniques in resected NSCLC from the large ETOP Lungscape cohort.

      Methods:
      96 cases from the ETOP Lungscape iBiobank (N=2709) selected based on any degree of IHC staining (clone 5A4 antibody, Novocastra, UK) were examined by FISH (Abbott Molecular, Inc.; Blackhall, JCO 2014), central RT-PCR and NGS. H-score 120 is used as cutoff for IHC+. For both RT-PCR and NGS, RNA was extracted from the same formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. For RT-PCR, primers were used covering the most frequent ALK translocations. For NGS, the Oncomine™ Solid Tumour Fusion Transcript Kit was used, allowing simultaneous sequencing of 70 ALK, RET and ROS1 specific fusion transcripts associated with NSCLC, as well as novel ALK translocations using 5’-3’ ALK gene expression ‘Imbalance Assay’.

      Results:
      NGS provided results for 90 cases, while RT-PCR for 77. Overall, 70 cases have results for all 4 methods, with fully concordant 60 (85.7%) cases (49 ALK-, 11 ALK+). Before employing the ‘Imbalance Assay', in 5 of the remaining 10 cases, NGS differs from the other methods (3 NGS-, 2 NGS+), while in the other 5, NGS agrees with RT-PCR in all, IHC in 2, and FISH in 1. Using the concordant result of at least two of the three methods as true negative/positive, the specificity and sensitivity of the fourth is 96/94/100/96% and 94/94/89/72% for IHC/FISH/RT-PCR/NGS, respectively (incorporating imbalance: NGS sensitivity=83%). Imbalance scores are presented here for 18 NGS- cases: 9 ‘NGS-/FISH+/IHC+’, 9 ‘NGS-/FISH-/IHC-‘. Among the ‘NGS-/FISH+/IHC+’, there is strong evidence of imbalance in 4 cases (score’s range: 0.0144-0.0555), uncertain in 5 (range: 0.0030-0.0087), and no evidence (scores≤0.0004) in the 9 negative cases.

      Conclusion:
      NGS is a useful screening tool for ALK rearrangement status, superior to RT-PCR when RNA yield is limited. When using NGS, it is critically important to integrate the 5’-3’ imbalance assay and to confirm with one or more additional methods in the ‘imbalance’ cases. Data further highlight the possibility of missing actionable rearrangements when only one screening methodology is available.

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    P3.03 - Poster Session with Presenters Present (ID 473)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Poster Presenters Present
    • Track: Mesothelioma/Thymic Malignancies/Esophageal Cancer/Other Thoracic Malignancies
    • Presentations: 1
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      P3.03-044 - Is Toxicity Increased by Adding Intraoperative Chemotherapy to Preoperative Induction Chemotherapy for Mesothelioma Patients? (ID 5945)

      14:30 - 15:45  |  Author(s): R. Stahel

      • Abstract
      • Slides

      Background:
      Intracavitary application of chemotherapy after mesothelioma resection is intended to prevent local recurrence. In the present study, we compared hematological and renal toxicity of patients treated with or without additional intracavitary cisplatin-fibrin after (extended) pleurectomy/decortication ((e)P/D) and previous i.v. induction chemotherapy with cisplatin/pemetrexed (CTX).

      Methods:
      Hemoglobin values, platelet count as well as urea, creatinine, sodium, potassium and magnesium values of 32 patients treated with (e)P/D were compared to the first five patients receiving 44mg/m[2] BSA intracavitary cisplatin-fibrin in our INFLuenCe-Meso phase II trial (www.clinicaltrial.gov NCT01644994). The median time between last cycle of CTX and surgery was 6 weeks (1-14 weeks). The blood values were measured on postoperative day (POD) 1 to 5, 7, 10 and 14 if available. For statistical comparison Mann-Whitney U test was used.

      Results:
      No significant difference between the 2 groups was observed in the preoperative baseline blood samples. On POD3 hemoglobin dropped significantly more in patients with cisplatin-fibrin application (Figure 1A). However, the use of blood transfusion was not significantly different in both groups. Also sodium, potassium (Figure 1B) and magnesium levels were significantly lower in the study patient group. Disorders in electrolytes were however never reflected in clinical symptoms and reached only in 3 patients a CTCAE level ≥3. There was no significant difference in platelet count, urea and creatinine levels. Figure 1



      Conclusion:
      The present analysis shows that additional intracavitary cisplatin-fibrin after eP/D and previous i.v. induction chemotherapy with cisplatin/pemetrexed can lead to electrolyte disorders and drop in hemoglobin concentration. However, none of the mentioned laboratory findings had a clinically significant impact on the patients’ postoperative course.

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    SC15 - Clinical Trials: How to Set Priorities? (ID 339)

    • Event: WCLC 2016
    • Type: Science Session
    • Track: Trial Design/Statistics
    • Presentations: 1
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      SC15.02 - The European Perspective (ID 6659)

      11:00 - 12:30  |  Author(s): R. Stahel

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Abstract not provided

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