• Daniel P Petrylak, Ronald de Wit, Kim N Chi, Alexandra Drakaki, Cora N Sternberg, Hiroyuki Nishiyama, Daniel Castellano, Syed Hussain, Aude Fléchon, Aristotelis Bamias, Evan Y Yu, Michiel S van der Heijden, Nobuaki Matsubara, Boris Alekseev, Andrea Necchi, Lajos Géczi, Yen-Chuan Ou, Hasan Senol Coskun, Wen-Pin Su, Miriam Hegemann, Ivor J Percent, Jae-Lyun Lee, Marcello Tucci, Andrey Semenov, Fredrik Laestadius, Avivit Peer, Giampaolo Tortora, Sufia Safina, Xavier Garcia Del Muro, Alejo Rodriguez-Vida, Irfan Cicin, Hakan Harputluoglu, Ryan C Widau, Astra M Liepa, Richard A Walgren, Oday Hamid, Annamaria H Zimmermann, Katherine M Bell-McGuinn, Thomas Powles, and RANGE study investigators.
• Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. Electronic address: daniel.petrylak@yale.edu.
• Lancet. 2017 Nov 18; 390 (10109): 2266-2277.

BackgroundFew treatments with a distinct mechanism of action are available for patients with platinum-refractory advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. We assessed the efficacy and safety of treatment with docetaxel plus either ramucirumab-a human IgG1 VEGFR-2 antagonist-or placebo in this patient population.MethodsWe did a randomised, double-blind, phase 3 trial in patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who progressed during or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients were enrolled from 124 sites in 23 countries. Previous treatment with one immune-checkpoint inhibitor was permitted. Patients were randomised (1:1) using an interactive web response system to receive intravenous docetaxel 75 mg/m2 plus either intravenous ramucirumab 10 mg/kg or matching placebo on day 1 of repeating 21-day cycles, until disease progression or other discontinuation criteria were met. The primary endpoint was investigator-assessed progression-free survival, analysed by intention-to-treat in the first 437 randomised patients. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02426125.FindingsBetween July, 2015, and April, 2017, 530 patients were randomly allocated either ramucirumab plus docetaxel (n=263) or placebo plus docetaxel (n=267). Progression-free survival was prolonged significantly in patients allocated ramucirumab plus docetaxel versus placebo plus docetaxel (median 4·07 months [95% CI 2·96-4·47] vs 2·76 months [2·60-2·96]; hazard ratio [HR] 0·757, 95% CI 0·607-0·943; p=0·0118). A blinded independent central analysis was consistent with these results. An objective response was achieved by 53 (24·5%, 95% CI 18·8-30·3) of 216 patients allocated ramucirumab and 31 (14·0%, 9·4-18·6) of 221 assigned placebo. The most frequently reported treatment-emergent adverse events, regardless of causality, in either treatment group (any grade) were fatigue, alopecia, diarrhoea, decreased appetite, and nausea. These events occurred predominantly at grade 1-2 severity. The frequency of grade 3 or worse adverse events was similar for patients allocated ramucirumab and placebo (156 [60%] of 258 vs 163 [62%] of 265 had an adverse event), with no unexpected toxic effects. 63 (24%) of 258 patients allocated ramucirumab and 54 (20%) of 265 assigned placebo had a serious adverse event that was judged by the investigator to be related to treatment. 38 (15%) of 258 patients allocated ramucirumab and 43 (16%) of 265 assigned placebo died on treatment or within 30 days of discontinuation, of which eight (3%) and five (2%) deaths were deemed related to treatment by the investigator. Sepsis was the most common adverse event leading to death on treatment (four [2%] vs none [0%]). One fatal event of neutropenic sepsis was reported in a patient allocated ramucirumab.InterpretationTo the best of our knowledge, ramucirumab plus docetaxel is the first regimen in a phase 3 study to show superior progression-free survival over chemotherapy in patients with platinum-refractory advanced urothelial carcinoma. These data validate inhibition of VEGFR-2 signalling as a potential new therapeutic treatment option for patients with urothelial carcinoma.FundingEli Lilly and Company.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

38 keywords...

hide…