pCR and 2-Year Disease-Free Survival: A Combination of the Two Endpoints as a New Classification for Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer Patients-An Updated Pooled Analysis of Eleven International Randomized Trials.

LARC is managed by multimodal treatments whose intensity can be highly modulated. In this context, we need surrogate endpoints to help predict long-term outcomes and better personalize treatments. A previous study identified 2yDFS as a stronger predictor of OS than pCR in LARC patients undergoing neoadjuvant RT. The aim of this pooled analysis was to assess the role of pCR and 2yDFS as surrogate endpoints for OS in a larger cohort. The pooled and subgroup analyses were performed on large rectal cancer randomized trial cohorts who received long-course RT. Our analysis focused on the evaluation of OS in relation to the pCR and 2-year disease status. A total of 4600 patients were analyzed. Four groups were identified according to intermediate outcomes: 12% had both pCR and 2yDFS (the better); 67% achieved 2yDFS but not pCR (the good); 1% had pCR but not 2yDFS; and 20% had neither pCR nor 2yDFS (the bad). The pCR and 2yDFS were favorably associated with OS in the univariate analysis, and 2yDFS maintained a statistically significant association in the multivariate analysis independently of the pCR status. The combination of the pCR and 2yDFS results in a strong predictor of OS, whereas failure to achieve 2yDFS carries a poor prognosis regardless of the pCR status. This new stratification of LARC patients could help design predictive models where the combination of 2yDFS and pCR should be employed as the primary outcome.

Surgical resection as a predictor of cancer-specific survival by stage at diagnosis and cancer type, United States, 2006-2015.

BACKGROUND: When solid tumors are amenable to definitive resection, clinical outcomes are generally superior to when those tumors are inoperable. However, the population-level cancer survival benefit of eligibility for surgery by cancer stage has not yet been quantified. METHODS: Using Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results data allowing us to identify patients who were deemed eligible for and received surgical resection, we examined the stage-specific association of surgical resection with 12-year cancer-specific survival. The 12-year endpoint was selected to maximize follow-up time and thereby minimize the influence of lead time bias. RESULTS: Across a variety of solid tumor types, earlier stage at diagnosis allowed for surgical intervention at a much higher rate than later-stage diagnosis. At every stage, surgical intervention was associated with a substantially higher rate of 12-year cancer-specific survival, with absolute differences of up to 51% for stage I, 51% for stage II, and 44% for stage III cancer, and stage-specific mortality relative risks of 3.6, 2.4, and 1.7, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Diagnosis of solid cancers in early stages often enables surgical resection, which reduces the risk of death from cancer. Receipt of surgical resection is an informative endpoint that is strongly associated with long-term cancer-specific survival at every stage.

Surrogate endpoints for early-stage breast cancer: a review of the state of the art, controversies, and future prospects.

Drug approval for early-stage breast cancer (EBC) has been historically granted in the context of registration trials based on adequate outcomes such as disease-free survival and overall survival. Improvements in long-term outcomes have made it more difficult to demonstrate the clinical benefit of a new cancer drug in large, randomized, comparative clinical trials. Therefore, the use of surrogate endpoints rather than traditional measures allows for cancer drug trials to proceed with smaller sample sizes and shorter follow-up periods, which reduces drug development time. Among surrogate endpoints for breast cancer, the increase in pathological complete response (pCR) rates was considered appropriate for accelerated drug approval. The association between pCR and long-term outcomes was strongest in patients with aggressive tumor subtypes, such as triple-negative and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive/hormone receptor-negative breast cancers. Whereas in hormone receptor-positive/HER2-negative EBC, the most accepted surrogate markers for endocrine therapy-based trials include changes in Ki67 and the preoperative endocrine prognostic index. Beyond the classic endpoints, further prognostic tools are required to provide EBC patients with individualized and effective therapies, and the neoadjuvant setting provides an excellent platform for drug development and biomarker discovery. Nowadays, the availability of multigene signatures is offering a standardized quantitative and reproducible tool to potentiate the efficacy of standard treatment for high-risk patients and develop de-escalated treatments for patients at lower risk of relapse. In this article, we first evaluate the surrogacies used for long-term outcomes and the underlying evidence supporting the use of each surrogate endpoint for the accelerated or regular drug approval process in EBC. Next, we provide an overview of the most recent studies and innovative strategies in a (neo)adjuvant setting as a platform to accelerate new drug approval. Finally, we highlight some clinical trials aimed at tailoring systemic treatment of EBC using prognosis-related factors or early biomarkers of drug sensitivity or resistance.

The impact of radiological assessment schedules on progression-free survival in metastatic breast cancer: A systemic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The impact of interval of restaging on the observed magnitude of benefit of progression-free survival (PFS) is undefined. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Phase 3 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating anti-neoplastic drugs for metastatic breast cancer which reported the restaging interval and hazard ratio (HR) for PFS were included. Data on study design and study population were collected. HRs and 95% confidence intervals for PFS and OS (overall survival) were pooled in a meta-analysis. Studies were categorized according to short (<9 weeks) or long (≥9 weeks) restaging interval. The differences in PFS and OS effect between trials employing short and long restaging intervals were assessed as subgroup analyses. Analyses were repeated for pre-specified subgroups. RESULTS: Eighty-nine studies comprising 95 comparisons and 44,901 patients were included. The magnitude of PFS benefit was larger in trials which employed short compared to long restaging intervals, but this difference did not reach the pre-defined threshold for statistical significance (HR = 0.79 vs. 0.86, P = 0.15). Short restaging interval was associated with significantly higher magnitude of effect on PFS in pre-specified subgroups including non-first line trials (HR = 0.78 vs. 0.92, P = 0.04), trials with drugs replacing standard treatment (HR = 0.86 vs. 1.04, P = 0.02) and studies performed in exclusively human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive disease (HR = 0.72 vs. 0.90, P = 0.02). The magnitude of OS benefit was similar with short and long restaging intervals. CONCLUSIONS: Shorter restaging intervals are associated with a higher magnitude of effect on PFS, but not OS. Awareness of the impact of the restaging interval on quantification of PFS is important for the design and interpretation of RCTs.

Pathological downstaging as a novel endpoint for the development of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for upper tract urothelial carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate whether pathological downstaging (pDS) was more informative in predicting overall survival (OS) than pathological complete response (pCR) in patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: The National Cancer Database was queried for patients with high-grade cN0M0 disease who had received NAC. pDS was defined as a decrease of at least one stage from cT to pT stage along with pN0, including pCR. A multivariable Cox model predicting OS was generated by fitting alternatively either pDS or pCR, and adjusted for potential confounders. The discrimination of the Cox models for predicting OS was evaluated using Harrell's C-index. The analyses were repeated in patients diagnosed as having cT2-4N0M0 disease. RESULTS: Among 264 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 72 (27%) and 39 (15%) achieved pDS and pCR, respectively. On multivariable analysis, both pDS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.13, 0.45; P < 0.001) and pCR (HR 0.37, 95% CI 0.18, 0.79; P = 0.01) were associated with OS. The model including pDS achieved better discrimination with respect to the model including pCR: C-index 76.4 vs 72.7, respectively. In the 128 patients diagnosed with cT2-4 disease, both pDS (HR 0.19, 95% CI 0.09, 0.40; P < 0.001) and pCR (HR 0.31, 95% CI 0.11, 0.85; P = 0.023) were confirmed as predictors of OS. The model including pDS was confirmed to discriminate better than the model including pCR: C-index 75 vs 68.9, respectively. CONCLUSION: The study showed that pDS after NAC for UTUC was more informative than pCR when predicting OS. These findings, although requiring prospective validation, can aid in the design of clinical trials seeking to refine the use of chemotherapy and other systemic therapies in this setting.

Clinical usefulness and relevance of intermediate endpoints for cytotoxic neoadjuvant therapy.

Intermediate endpoints are surrogate markers of treatment efficacy assessed earlier than the true outcome of interest. Tumor response after systemic neoadjuvant therapy is considered a suitable intermediate endpoint, especially for specific breast cancer subtypes. Response can be evaluated either after only 1 cycle of treatment by clinical evaluation or at the end of the planned neoadjuvant treatment by histomorphologic examination of all surgically removed tissues from the breast and regional nodes. Although several meta-analyses showed a lower risk of death among patients who attain a pathologic complete response (pCR) compared with patients with residual tumor in breast and/or lymph nodes after neoadjuvant therapy, a statistically significant linkage between increased pCR rate by a specific treatment and improvement of survival by the same treatment has not been demonstrated yet. Therefore, formal surrogacy of pCR is not established. Moreover, the better definition of pCR is still an open issue: a large pooled analysis demonstrated that patients who attained ypT0 ypN0 (no invasive or non-invasive residual cancer in breast and nodes) experienced longer DFS (p < 0.001) compared with patients who attained ypTis ypN0 (no invasive residual in breast and nodes irrespective of residual non-invasive disease). Nevertheless, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently allowed using pCR as a surrogate endpoint for accelerated approval process. Several meta-analyses demonstrated the greatest prognostic value of pCR in more aggressive breast cancer subtypes (i.e. triple-negative, HER2-positive, or high grade breast cancer). Usefulness of an earlier intermediate endpoints was prospectively demonstrated in the GeparTrio trial in which patients showing an early response achieved 4-times more frequently a pCR than those without early response.

Desenlaces clínicos en hematoncología: diez años de investigaciones en Pubmed / Clinical outcomes in Hemato-Oncology: Ten year Pubmed literature review

Objetivo: Determinar cuáles son los desenlaces clínicos empleados en los estudios fase III de tratamiento de neoplasias hematoncológicas y qué proporción de ellos emplean supervivencia global como desenlace primario. Método: Mediante una búsqueda en Pubmed, analizar todos los experimentos clínicos aleatorios publicados en los últimos 10 años, de tratamientos de novo, en población adulta. Resultados: La búsqueda inicial arrojó 310 referencias, entre las que se seleccionaron 90 estudios clínicos. La enfermedad más estudiada fue mieloma múltiple, con 29 estudios, seguida de linfoma no Hodgkin, con 26. Las otras fueron: leucemia mieloide aguda (12), leucemia linfocítica crónica (10), leucemia mieloide crónica (8), síndromes mielodisplásicos (3) y linfoma de Hodgkin (2). En 20 estudios (22%) se empleó la supervivencia global como desenlace primario (en solo 3 de ellos alcanzó significación estadística), en 37 más (41%) se agrupó con otros desenlaces para conformar un desenlace compuesto. En 55 estudios (61%) la supervivencia global fue un desenlace secundario. Conclusiones: Aunque la supervivencia global es el estándar de oro en terapia oncológica, los desenlaces agrupados u otros, como tiempo libre de enfermedad o indicadores paraclínicos de actividad de la enfermedad, son más empleados, quizá por ser buenos predictores y requerir muestras y seguimientos menores. Su capacidad para predecir supervivencia global (en algunos casos calidad de vida) debe ser validada. Solo en las formas más agresivas de cáncer se justifica usar de rutina la supervivencia global como el desenlace primario.

Objective: To describe the clinical outcomes used in phase III studies in Hematology-Oncology malignancies, and to determine what proportion use overall survival as the primary outcome. Methods: Using a systematic literature search in PubMed, an analysis was made of phaseIII randomized clinical trials with de novo treatments of hematology-oncological neoplasias in adult populations published in the last 10 years. Results: The initial search yielded 310 references, 90 of which were finally selected. The overall survival rate was used in 20 studies (22%) as the primary outcome (in 3 of them it reached statistical significance). Grouped intermediate outcomes were used in 37 others (41%). As a secondary outcome the overall survival rate was used in 55 studies (61%). Among the intermediate outcomes used were, response rates, disease-free or relapse-free survival rates, and progression-free survival rate. Multiple myeloma was the most studied disease, with 29 studies (32%), followed by non-Hodgkin lymphoma (28%). Conclusions: Although overall survival rate is the gold standard in cancer therapy, it is not the most often used outcome. Intermediate outcomes, such as disease-free survival or biomarkers are often good predictors, and require smaller samples and less follow-up time. Nevertheless, their predictive capacity for overall survival rate (or, in some cases, quality of life) should also be assessed. The use of the overall survival rate as the routine primary outcome is only justified in the most aggressive forms of cancer.