Radiotherapy in Patients With Metastatic Esophageal Cancer Responding to PD-1 Inhibitor Plus Chemotherapy

Official title

Radiotherapy in Patients With Metastatic Esophageal Cancer Responding to PD-1 Inhibitor Plus Chemotherapy: a Patient Preference Multicenter Randomized Phase II Trial

Overview

The treatment efficacy for stage IVb esophageal cancer has been improved through chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy recently. On this basis, the investigators intend to conduct a prospective, multicenter phase II clinical trial to assess whether radiotherapy could further improve the survival of patients with metastatic esophageal cancer responding to PD-1 Inhibitor plus chemotherapy. Accompanied tissue samples, blood samples and urine samples will be analyzed by molecular biological detection (Including Whole Exome Sequencing and proteomics) to explore potential biomarkers for predicting outcomes, efficacy and toxicity.

Detailed description

Esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the most common carcinomas with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. More than 30% of the patients were stage IV when diagnosed. Fluoropyrimidine plus platinum-based chemotherapy is recommended as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic EC for approximately four decades, however, only minimal improvement has been reached in overall survival (OS).

Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown effective antitumor activity in patients with unresectable, advanced or metastatic EC. Several randomized trials have demonstrated the PD-1 inhibitor could further improve the OS in patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) on the basis of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy has become one of the the standard treatment modality for metastatic EC.

As reported, for the patients with metastatic lung cancer or EC, locoregional radiotherapy could improve survival, especially in those who responding to systemic therapy. However, high-level evidence is still needed to assess whether these patients can benefit from local radiotherapy.

The efficacy of immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy is obviously better than that of chemotherapy alone. On this basis, locoregional radiotherapy may help those patients with metastatic EC responding to systemic therapy improve local control, relieve the local symptoms, and even improve survival.

Therefore, the investigators intend to conduct a prospective, multicenter phase II trial to assess the efficiency and safety of radiotherapy with chemotherapy and immunotherapy for patients with metastatic EC. Accompanied tissue samples, blood samples and urine samples will be analyzed by molecular biological detection to explore potential biomarkers for predicting outcomes, efficacy and toxicity.

Interventions

• Drug TP (Paclitaxel with cisplatin or carboplatin) or PF (Fluoropyrimidine with cisplatin or carboplatin) regimen depended on investigator's choice.
  A maximum of six cycles was recommended for chemotherapy. * Fluoropyrimidine (fluorouracil or capecitabine) with carboplatin or cisplatin; * Paclitaxel (or Albumin-bound paclitaxel) with carboplatin or cisplatin.
• Biological PD-1 inhibitor
  Nivolumab or Pembrolizumab or Tislelizumab or Serplulimab or Toripalimab or Sintilimab or Camrelizumab
• Radiation Consolidation Radiation
  IMRT/VMAT technique. Patients receive radiotherapy once daily, 5 days a week for an average of 5 weeks. Radiotherapy is delivered to achieve a dosage of 49.22Gy/23f or 50Gy/25f to PGTV for lymphnode metastasis only patients and 40.66Gy/19f or 40Gy/20f for organ metastasis patients. Radiation treatment is planned after chemotherapy completed.
• Radiation Salvage Radiation
  IMRT/VMAT technique. Patients receive radiotherapy once daily, 5 days a week for an average of 5 weeks. Radiotherapy is delivered to achieve a dosage of 49.22Gy/23f or 50Gy/25f to PGTV for lymphnode metastasis only patients and 40.66\~49.22Gy/19f \~23f or 40\~50Gy/20\~25f for organ metastasis patients. Radiation treatment is planned after disease progression when recommended by multidisciplinary team.

Primary outcome measures

• EFFICACY:1-year overall survival probability [Time frame: 12 month]

Secondary outcome measures (5)

• EFFICACY: Median progression-free survival (PFS) [Time frame: 12 month]
• SAFETY: Acute toxicity rate [Time frame: One month within the end of one specific treatment]
• SAFETY: Late toxicity rate [Time frame: One month after the end of one specific treatment.]
• QUALITY OF LIFE: Change From Baseline in the EORTC QLQ-C30 Subscale Scores in Participants [Time frame: 24 month]
• QUALITY OF LIFE: Change From Baseline in the EORTC QLQ-OES18 Subscale Scores in Participants [Time frame: 24 month]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

• 1\. ≥18 years, any gender
• 2\. Histologically or cytologically confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of esophageal cancer. The initial clinical stage is IVb (2018 AJCC Cancer Staging Manual, 8th Edition) or recurrent patients with recurrence after radical treatment (radical treatment includes surgery and radiotherapy, but the recurrence site cannot be located in the previous radiotherapy field).
• 3\. ECOG performance status <= 1. Patients aged 65 years and over need to complete G8 screening or Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment, and the final evaluation is good;
• 4.There was no significant abnormality in laboratory routine indicators such as blood routine and liver and kidney function;
• 5.For patients after definitive or preoperative radiotherapy, no recurrence was in the prior radiation filed;
• 6.Expected survival is more than 12 weeks;
• 7.Informed consent provided;
• 8.With response to 2-4 cycles of the first-line chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy.

Exclusion criteria

• 1.Patients with other cancer history except hypopharyngeal carcinoma in situ, non-malignant skin cancer and cervical carcinoma in situ.
• 2.Received surgery (except ostomy), chemotherapy or other anti-tumor treatment before enrollment；
• 3\. Active infection currently exists . The following conditions occurred within 6 months before randomization: myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, or received gastrointestinal, neurological, cardiopulmonary surgery;
• 4\. History of allergy to chemotherapy drugs or autoimmune disease;
• 5\. Participate in other clinical trials at present or within 4 weeks before enrollment;
• 6.There are factors such as high risk of fistula that radiotherapy cannot be safely carried out as assessed by the radiation oncologist.

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: No

Study design

Allocation

Randomized

Model

Parallel assignment

Masking

Open label

Primary purpose

Treatment

Study locations

China · 1 center

• Cancer hospital, CAMS — Beijing

Publications

• Sun JM, Shen L, Shah MA, Enzinger P, Adenis A, Doi T, Kojima T, Metges JP, Li Z, Kim SB, Cho BC, Mansoor W, Li SH, Sunpaweravong P, Maqueda MA, Goekkurt E, Hara H, Antunes L, Fountzilas C, Tsuji A, Oliden VC, Liu Q, Shah S, Bhagia P, Kato K; KEYNOTE-590 Investigators. Pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone for first-line treatment of advanced oesophageal cancer (KEYNOTE-590): a PMID 34454674
• Luo H, Lu J, Bai Y, Mao T, Wang J, Fan Q, Zhang Y, Zhao K, Chen Z, Gao S, Li J, Fu Z, Gu K, Liu Z, Wu L, Zhang X, Feng J, Niu Z, Ba Y, Zhang H, Liu Y, Zhang L, Min X, Huang J, Cheng Y, Wang D, Shen Y, Yang Q, Zou J, Xu RH; ESCORT-1st Investigators. Effect of Camrelizumab vs Placebo Added to Chemotherapy on Survival and Progression-Free Survival in Patients With Advanced or Metastatic Esophageal Sq PMID 34519801
• Guttmann DM, Mitra N, Bekelman J, Metz JM, Plastaras J, Feng W, Swisher-McClure S. Improved Overall Survival with Aggressive Primary Tumor Radiotherapy for Patients with Metastatic Esophageal Cancer. J Thorac Oncol. 2017 Jul;12(7):1131-1142. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2017.03.026. Epub 2017 Apr 28. PMID 28461255

Identifiers

NCT: NCT06084897 · BEIR 1

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗