medwireNews: Individuals with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) continue to derive a long-term survival benefit from second- or later-line treatment with nivolumab versus docetaxel, according to 5-year results from the CheckMate 017 and 057 trials.
The findings were presented at the IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.
Pooling data from the studies, Scott Gettinger (Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, USA) and colleagues found that overall survival at 5 years was achieved by 13.4% of the 427 patients who were randomly assigned to receive nivolumab 3 mg every 2 weeks for stage IIIB–IV disease, and by 2.6% of their 427 counterparts who instead received docetaxel.
The respective 5-year progression-free survival rates were 8% and 0%, and 32.2% of nivolumab-treated participants had an ongoing response at 5 years versus none of those given docetaxel; the corresponding median durations of response were 19.9 and 5.6 months.
Describing the data as “really unprecedented” in a press conference, Gettinger noted that the benefit with nivolumab was seen in both the CheckMate 017 trial comprising patients with squamous NSCLC and the CheckMate 057 trial of those with nonsquamous disease.
The “good news” in terms of the safety profile was that no new safety signals for the PD-1 inhibitor were observed with the longer follow-up, he added. Indeed, there was only one additional grade 3 toxicity (elevated lipase) and one discontinuation due to an adverse event since the last report at the 3-year timepoint.
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IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer 2019; Barcelona, Spain: 7–10 September