Safety of First-line Chemotherapy with Metronomic Single-agent Oral Vinorelbine in Elderly Patients with NSCLC

Revisiting metronomic vinorelbine with mathematical modelling: a Phase I trial in lung cancer

BACKGROUND

A phase Ia/Ib trial of metronomic oral vinorelbine (MOV) driven by a mathematical model was performed in heavily pretreated metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer or Pleural Mesothelioma patients. Disease Control Rate, progression free survival, toxicity and PK/PD were the main endpoints.

METHODS

Best MOV scheduling was selected using a simplified phenomenological, semi-mechanistic model with a total weekly dose of 150-mg vinorelbine. Computation of individual PK parameters was performed using population approach.

RESULTS

The mathematical model proposed the following metronomic schedule for a 150-mg weekly dose of vinorelbine: 60 mg D1, 30 mg D2, 60 mg D4. A total of 37 heavily pre-treated patients (30 evaluable) were enrolled. Grade III/IV neutropenia was observed in 30% patients. Median PFS was 11 weeks. Disease Control Rate was 73% (i.e.; 13% partial response and 60% stable disease). A large variability in drug exposure (AUC_0-24 h: 53%) and PK parameters (Cl: 83%) were observed among patients. Simulated trough levels after D2 and D4 showed similarly 56-73% variability among patients. Drug exposure was not associated with efficacy, but neutropenia was more frequent in patients with AUC > 250 ng/ml.h. Tumor burden, performance status and neutrophils-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were associated with PFS, suggesting that MOV would be indicated in selected patients. We built a composite score to predict efficacy, mixing baseline tumor size and NLR showing 84% selectivity and 75% specificity.

CONCLUSIONS

MOV was characterized by important variability in drug exposure among patients. However, and despite being all heavily pre-treated, 73% of disease control rate and 11 weeks PFS were achieved with manageable toxicities. PK/PD relationships yielded conflicting results depending on the initial tumor burden and BSA, suggesting that patients should be carefully selected prior to be scheduled for metronomic regimen. Possible role NLR could play as a predictive marker suggests immunomodulating features with MOV.

Vinorelbine in bladder-preserving multimodality treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer-a valid option for cisplatin-unfit patients?

Purpose

Treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) remains challenging, especially for elderly and/or comorbid patients. Patients who are unfit for or refuse surgery should receive bladder-preserving multimodality treatment (BPMT), consisting of transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURB) followed by combined chemoradiotherapy (CRT). We aimed to investigate the effectiveness of vinorelbine, a chemotherapeutic agent not routinely used for MIBC, in patients referred to CRT who are unfit for standard chemotherapy and would thus rely solely on radiotherapy (RT).

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed 52 consecutive patients with MIBC who received standard CRT with cisplatin (n = 14), CRT with vinorelbine (n = 26), or RT alone (n = 12). Primary endpoints were median overall survival (OS) and median cancer-specific survival (CSS). Secondary endpoints were median local control (LC), median distant control (DC), and OS, CSS, LC, and DC after 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively.

Results

Median OS and CSS were significantly higher for patients who received vinorelbine as compared to RT alone (OS 8 vs. 22 months, p = 0.003; CSS 11 months vs. not reached, p = 0.001). Median LC and DC did not differ significantly between groups. Vinorelbine was well tolerated with no reported side effects >grade II.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that CRT with vinorelbine is well tolerated and superior to RT alone in terms of OS and CSS. Therefore, this treatment regime might constitute a new treatment option for patients with MIBC who are unfit for or refuse surgery or standard chemotherapy. This study encourages a randomized controlled trial to compare this new regime to current standard therapies.

Anti-Cancer Treatment Strategies in the Older Population: Time to Test More?

Aging is a well-recognized risk factor for the development of cancer. The incidence of new cancer diagnoses has increased globally given the rising senior population. Many hypotheses for this increased risk have been postulated over decades, including increased genetic and epigenetic mutations and the concept of immunosenescence. The optimal treatment strategies for this population with cancer are unclear. Older cancer patients are traditionally under-represented in clinical trials developed to set the standard of care, leading to undertreatment or increased toxicity. With this background, it is crucial to investigate new opportunities that belong to the most recent findings of an anti-cancer agent, such as immune-checkpoint inhibitors, to manage these daily clinical issues and eventually combine them with alternative administration strategies of antiblastic drugs such as metronomic chemotherapy.

Metronomic oral vinorelbine in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer progressing after nivolumab immunotherapy: a retrospective analysis

Purpose:

The availability of immune checkpoint inhibitors has deeply changed the therapeutic scenario of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Up until now, chemotherapy still represents the first-line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC not harbouring genetic mutations or lacking high expression of programmed death ligand even if the addition of immunotherapy to first-line chemotherapy has recently been shown to improve clinical outcome. We carried out a multi-institutional retrospective analysis on third-line chemotherapy with metronomic oral vinorelbine (VNR) in a series of patients with metastatic NSCLC pre-treated with first-line chemotherapy and second-line immunotherapy.

Patients and methods:

Thirty patients with metastatic NSCLC with progressive disease after first-line chemotherapy and subsequent immunotherapy were treated with metronomic oral VNR continuously at the fixed dose of 30 mg three times per week.

Results:

A partial response was achieved in 4 patients (13.3%), while 10 patients (33.3%) displayed disease stabilisation for an overall disease control rate of 46.7%. Median progression-free survival was 3.9 months (range 1–13 months) and median OS reached 8.1 months (range 4.0–24.0+ months) with a 12-month survival rate of 22%.

Conclusion:

Oral metronomic VNR appears to be active and safe in patients with metastatic NSCLC in progression after first-line chemotherapy and second-line immunotherapy. The results reported, although from a limited sample, may suggest its use for long-term stabilisation of the disease with good patient compliance.

Metronomic chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer

Metronomic chemotherapy (MCT) is defined as the rhythmic chemotherapy of low-dose cytotoxic drugs with short or no drug-free breaks over prolonged periods. MCT affects tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment. Particularly, the low-dose schedule impairs the repair process of endothelial cells, resulting in an anti-angiogenesis effect. By stimulating the immune system to eliminate tumor cells, MCT induces immunological activation. Furthermore, combined with targeted therapy, anti-angiogenic drugs enhance the efficacy of MCT. The present review is an overview of phase I, II and III clinical trials focusing on the efficacy, toxicity and mechanism of MCT in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Furthermore, the prospects of MCT in NSCLC have been discussed. The present review indicated that MCT is an efficacious treatment for selected patients with NSCLC, with acceptable systemic side effects and economic viability for public health.

Metronomic Oral Vinorelbine: An Alternative Schedule in Elderly and Patients PS2 With Local/Advanced and Metastatic NSCLC Not Oncogene-addicted

BACKGROUND

The MILES and ELVIS studies showed that vinorelbine is one of the best options for elderly patients with advanced non-small-cell-lung cancer (NSCLC). Oral vinorelbine at standard schedule (60-80 mg/m²/weekly) has good activity in terms of response rates and progression-free survival. In recent years, a metronomic schedule of oral vinorelbine (40-50 mg/m² three times a week, continuously) has been studied in phase II trials, especially in unfit and elderly patients. In the MOVE trial metronomic oral vinorelbine had a clinical benefit [partial response (PR)+stable disease (SD) >12 weeks] in 58.1% of patients with mild toxicity. On this basis, in 2017 we started a phase II study with metronomic oral vinorelbine in elderly (over 70 years) or unfit [Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score (ECOG-PS) of 2] patients with locally/advanced and metastatic NSCLC. Primary aims were clinical benefit (PR+SD ≥6 months) and toxicity; secondary aims were progression-free survival and overall survival.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A total of 25 patients entered the study: 11 with local/advanced and 14 with metastatic NSCLC (five squamous and 20 adenocarcinoma). None of the patients had epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) translocation, or programmed death ligand 1 (PDL1) expression; those with squamous carcinoma did not have PDL1 expression. The median age was 79 (range=44-90) years. The PS was 0 in 12 patients (48%), 1 in four patients (16%) and 2 in nine patients (36%). Oral vinorelbine was administered at 40 mg three times a week continuously.

RESULTS

Clinical benefit was achieved in eight patients (32%). Objective responses were partial response in two patients (8%), stable disease in seven (28%), progressive disease in nine (36%); seven patients were not evaluable for response (28%). Median progression-free survival was 2 months; median overall survival was 4 months but four out of eight patients with clinical benefit were still alive at 18 months. Overall survival at 1 year was 32%. Toxicity was mild: only one patient experienced grade 4 neutropenia, one grade 3 peripheral neuropathy, four grade 2 asthenia, one grade 2 mucositis, and one grade 2 diarrhoea. The dose needed to be reduced to 30 mg/m²/three times a week in three patients.

CONCLUSION

Our study confirmed the activity and safety of metronomic oral vinorelbine in patients with wild-type local/advanced and metastatic NSCLC unsuitable for treatment with standard i.v. chemotherapy, allowing patients a comfortable home-based therapy, thereby avoiding frequent hospital visits.

Metronomic oral vinorelbine for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer: a multicenter international retrospective analysis

PURPOSE

Metronomic oral vinorelbine (MOV) could be a treatment option for unfit patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) based on its safety profile and high patient compliance.

METHODS

We retrospectively collected data on 270 patients [median age 76 (range 48-92) years, M/F 204/66, PS 0 (27)/1 (110)/≥ 2 (133), median of 3 serious comorbidities] with stage IIIB-IV NSCLC treated with MOV as first (T1) (67%), second (T2) (19%) or subsequent (T3) (14%) line. Schedules consisted of vinorelbine 50 mg (138), 40 mg (68) or 30 mg (64) three times a week continuously.

RESULTS

Patients received an overall median of 6 (range 1-25) cycles with a total of 1253 cycles delivered. The overall response rate was 17.8% with 46 partial and 2 complete responses and 119 patients (44.1%) experienced stable disease > 12 weeks with an overall disease control rate of 61.9%. Median overall time to progression was 5 (range 1-21) months [T1 7 (1-21), T2 5.5 (1-19) and T3 4 (1-19) months] and median overall survival 9 (range 1-36) months [T1 10 (1-31), T2 8 (1-36) and T3 6.5 (2-29) months]. Treatment was extremely well tolerated with 2% (25/1253) G3/4 toxicity (mainly G3 fatigue and anemia) and no toxic deaths. We observed the longer OS 14 (range 7-36) months in a subset of squamous NSCLC patients receiving immunotherapy after metronomic oral vinorelbine.

CONCLUSION

We confirmed MOV as an extremely safe treatment in a large real world population of advanced NSCLC with an interesting activity mainly consisting of long-term disease stabilization. We speculate the possibility of a synergistic effect with subsequent immunotherapy.

Efficacy and Safety of Ipilimumab plus Chemotherapy for Advanced Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with poor prognosis in advanced lung cancer patients. Platinum-based chemotherapy has always been a first-line treatment for the majority of advanced lung cancer patients, but its long-term survival benefit is limited. Ipilimumab is an immune drug that targets the CTLA-4 protein in T cells. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of adding ipilimumab to simple chemotherapy for patients with advanced lung cancer. We searched literatures in PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and cliniclatrials.gov. The primary end points of this assessment were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and immune-related PFS(irPFS) of lung cancer patients. Other end points were objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR) and safety. The results of this study will be presented by the risk ratio (RR) of the endpoints and the 95% confidence interval (CI) of the various effect sizes. And when the p value is less than 0.05, we think there is a statistical difference. Finally, 6 RCTs and 2,037 patients including 953 with advanced or recurrent non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 1084 with extensive-disease small-cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC) were identified. Among them, 1089 received immunochemotherapy, and 948 patients received chemotherapy alone. Immunochemotherapy can't improve OS (6months: risk ratio (RR)=0.97 P=0.11; 1year: RR=1.05 P=0.36), ORR (RR=1.00 P=0.95) and DCR (RR=0.92, 95%CI 0.85-1.00, P=0.04) of patients with lung cancer compared to pure chemotherapy, but it can improve the PFS (6months: RR=1.16 P=0.02; 1year: RR=1.39 P=0.02) and 6months-irPFS(RR=1.60 P=0.004). However, due to the addition of ipilimumab, the immune-related toxicities are more apparent in immunochemotherapy group.

Enhanced antitumor and anti-angiogenic effects of metronomic Vinorelbine combined with Endostar on Lewis lung carcinoma

Background

Conventional chemotherapy is commonly used to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) however it increases therapeutic resistance. In contrast, metronomic chemotherapy (MET) is based on frequent drug administration at lower doses, resulting in inhibition of neovascularization and induction of tumor dormancy. This study aims to evaluate the inhibitory effects, adverse events, and potential mechanisms of MET Vinorelbine (NVB) combined with an angiogenesis inhibitor (Endostar).

Methods

Circulating endothelial progenitor cells (CEPs), apoptosis rate, expression of CD31, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1α) were determined using flow cytometry, western blot analysis, immunofluorescence staining and Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis. And some animals were also observed using micro fluorine-18-deoxyglucose PET/computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT) to identify changes by comparing SUVmax values. In addition, white blood cell (WBC) counts and H&E-stained sections of liver, lungs, kidney, and heart were performed in order to monitor toxicity assessments.

Results

We found that treatment with MET NVB + Endo was most effective in inhibiting tumor growth, decreasing expression of CD31, VEGF, HIF-1α, and CEPs, and reducing side effects, inducing apoptosis, such as expression of Bcl-2, Bax and caspase-3. Administration with a maximum tolerated dose of NVB combined with Endostar (MTD NVB + Endo) demonstrated similar anti-tumor effects, including changes in glucose metabolism with micro fluorine-18-deoxyglucose PET/computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT) imaging, however angiogenesis was not inhibited. Compared with either agent alone, the combination of drugs resulted in better anti-tumor effects.

Conclusion

These results indicated that MET NVB combined with Endo significantly enhanced anti-tumor and anti-angiogenic responses without overt toxicity in a xenograft model of human lung cancer.