• Robert Haddad, Fernando Concha-Benavente, George Blumenschein, Jerome Fayette, Joel Guigay, A Dimitrios Colevas, Lisa Licitra, Stefan Kasper, Everett E Vokes, Francis Worden, Nabil F Saba, Makoto Tahara, Vijayvel Jayaprakash, Mark Lynch, Li Li, Maura L Gillison, Kevin J Harrington, and Robert L Ferris.
• Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Cancer. 2019 Sep 15; 125 (18): 3208-3218.

BackgroundResponse patterns with immune checkpoint inhibitors may be different from those with chemotherapy. Therefore, assessment of response to immunotherapy with the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST), version 1.1, could result in premature treatment termination. The randomized, open-label, phase 3 CheckMate 141 trial (NCT02105636), which evaluated nivolumab in recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck after platinum therapy, allowed treatment beyond first RECIST-defined progression (TBP) according to protocol-specified criteria.MethodsIn CheckMate 141, patients with RECIST-defined progression who had a stable performance status and demonstrated clinical benefit without rapid disease progression were permitted to receive TBP with nivolumab at 3 mg/kg every 2 weeks until further progression, which was defined as an additional ≥10% increase in tumor volume. This post hoc analysis evaluated outcomes for patients who received TBP with nivolumab.ResultsOf 240 patients randomized to nivolumab, 146 experienced RECIST-defined progression. Sixty-two of these patients received TBP, and 84 discontinued treatment (no TBP). Among the 60 TBP patients evaluable for response, 15 (25%) had no change in their tumor burden, and 15 (25%) had reductions in target lesion size; 3 patients (5%) had reductions >30%. The median overall survival among TBP patients was 12.7 months (95% confidence interval, 9.7-14.6 months). No new safety signals were observed with TBP. Exploratory analyses of immune cell biomarkers suggested a potential relationship with initial and TBP responses.ConclusionsTumor burden reduction was noted in a proportion of patients who received TBP with nivolumab in CheckMate 141. Additional research is warranted to identify factors predictive of a TBP benefit in this population.© 2019 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Cancer Society.

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