Xiuwen Wang

Importance: Standard first-line therapy for advanced or metastatic esophageal carcinoma is chemotherapy, but the prognosis remains poor. Camrelizumab (an anti-programmed death receptor 1 [PD-1] antibody) showed antitumor activity in previously treated advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and adverse events of camrelizumab plus chemotherapy vs placebo plus chemotherapy as a first-line treatment in advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Design, Setting, and Participants: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase 3 trial (ESCORT-1st study) enrolled patients from 60 hospitals in China between December 3, 2018, and May 12, 2020 (final follow-up, October 30, 2020). A total of 751 patients were screened and 596 eligible patients with untreated advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were randomized. Interventions: Patients were randomized 1:1 to receive either camrelizumab 200 mg (n = 298) or placebo (n = 298), combined with up to 6 cycles of paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) and cisplatin (75 mg/m2). All treatments were given intravenously every 3 weeks. Main Outcomes and Measures: Coprimary end points were overall survival (significance threshold, 1-sided P < .02) and progression-free survival (significance threshold, 1-sided P < .005). Results: Of the 596 patients randomized (median age, 62 years [interquartile range, 56-67 years]; 523 men [87.8%]), 1 patient in the placebo-chemotherapy group did not receive planned treatment. A total of 490 patients (82.2%) had discontinued the study treatment. The median follow-up was 10.8 months. The overall survival for the camrelizumab-chemotherapy group was a median of 15.3 months (95% CI, 12.8-17.3; 135 deaths) vs a median of 12.0 months (95% CI, 11.0-13.3; 174 deaths) for the placebo-chemotherapy group (hazard ratio [HR] for death, 0.70 [95% CI, 0.56-0.88]; 1-sided P = .001). Progression-free survival for camrelizumab plus chemotherapy was a median of 6.9 months (95% CI, 5.8-7.4; 199 progression or deaths) vs 5.6 months (95% CI, 5.5-5.7; 229 progression or deaths) for the placebo-chemotherapy group (HR for progression or death, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.46-0.68]; 1-sided P < .001). Treatment-related adverse events of grade 3 or higher occurred in 189 patients (63.4%) in the camrelizumab-chemotherapy group and 201 (67.7%) in the placebo-chemotherapy group, including treatment-related deaths among 9 patients (3.0%) and 11 patients (3.7%), respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, the addition of camrelizumab to chemotherapy, compared with placebo and chemotherapy, significantly improved overall survival and progression-free survival. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03691090.

Importance: Anlotinib is a novel multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitor for tumor angiogenesis and proliferative signaling. A phase 2 trial showed anlotinib to improve progression-free survival with a potential benefit of overall survival, leading to the phase 3 trial to confirm the drug's efficacy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Objective: To investigate the efficacy of anlotinib on overall survival of patients with advanced NSCLC progressing after second-line or further treatment. Design, Setting, and Participants: The ALTER 0303 trial was a multicenter, double-blind, phase 3 randomized clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of anlotinib in patients with advanced NSCLC. Patients from 31 grade-A tertiary hospitals in China were enrolled between March 1, 2015, and August 31, 2016. Those aged 18 to 75 years who had histologically or cytologically confirmed NSCLC were eligible (n = 606), and those who had centrally located squamous cell carcinoma with cavitary features or brain metastases that were uncontrolled or controlled for less than 2 months were excluded. Patients (n = 440) were randomly assigned in a 2-to-1 ratio to receive either 12 mg/d of anlotinib or a matched placebo. All cases were treated with study drugs at least once in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was overall survival. The secondary end points were progression-free survival, objective response rate, disease control rate, quality of life, and safety. Results: In total, 439 patients were randomized, 296 to the anlotinib group (106 [36.1%] were female and 188 [64.0%] were male, with a mean [SD] age of 57.9 [9.1] years) and 143 to the placebo group (46 [32.2%] were female and 97 [67.8%] were male, with a mean [SD] age of 56.8 [9.1] years). Overall survival was significantly longer in the anlotinib group (median, 9.6 months; 95% CI, 8.2-10.6) than the placebo group (median, 6.3 months; 95% CI, 5.0-8.1), with a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.68 (95% CI, 0.54-0.87; P = .002). A substantial increase in progression-free survival was noted in the anlotinib group compared with the placebo group (median, 5.4 months [95% CI, 4.4-5.6] vs 1.4 months [95% CI, 1.1-1.5]; HR, 0.25 [95% CI, 0.19-0.31]; P < .001). Considerable improvement in objective response rate and disease control rate was observed in the anlotinib group over the placebo group. The most common grade 3 or higher adverse events in the anlotinib arm were hypertension and hyponatremia. Conclusions and Relevance: Among the Chinese patients in this trial, anlotinib appears to lead to prolonged overall survival and progression-free survival. This finding suggests that anlotinib is well tolerated and is a potential third-line or further therapy for patients with advanced NSCLC. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02388919.

Abstract Objective To evaluate sintilimab versus placebo in combination with chemotherapy (cisplatin plus paclitaxel or cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil) as first line treatment of unresectable locally advanced, recurrent, or metastatic oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Design Multicentre, randomised, double blind, phase 3 trial. Setting 66 sites in China and 13 sites outside of China between 14 December 2018 and 9 April 2021. Participants 659 adults (aged ≥18 years) with advanced or metastatic oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma who had not received systemic treatment. Intervention Participants were randomised 1:1 to receive sintilimab or placebo (3 mg/kg in patients weighing &lt;60 kg or 200 mg in patients weighing ≥60 kg) in combination with cisplatin 75 mg/m 2 plus paclitaxel 175 mg/m 2 every three weeks. The trial was amended to allow investigators to choose the chemotherapy regimen: cisplatin plus paclitaxel or cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil (800 mg/m 2 continuous infusion on days 1-5). Main outcome measures Overall survival in all patients and in patients with combined positive scores of ≥10 for expression of programmed cell death ligand 1. Results 659 patients were randomly assigned to sintilimab (n=327) or placebo (n=332) with chemotherapy. 616 of 659 patients (93%) received sintilimab or placebo in combination with cisplatin plus paclitaxel and 43 of 659 patients (7%) received sintilimab or placebo in combination with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil. At the interim analysis, sintilimab with chemotherapy showed better overall survival compared with placebo and chemotherapy in all patients (median 16.7 v 12.5 months, hazard ratio 0.63, 95% confidence interval 0.51 to 0.78, P&lt;0.001) and in patients with combined positive scores of ≥10 (17.2 v 13.6 months, 0.64, 0.48 to 0.85, P=0.002). Sintilimab and chemotherapy significantly improved progression free survival compared with placebo and chemotherapy in all patients (7.2 v 5.7 months, 0.56, 0.46 to 0.68, P&lt;0.001) and in patients with combined positive scores of ≥10 (8.3 v 6.4 months, 0.58, 0.45 to 0.75, P&lt;0.001). Adverse events related to treatment occurred in 321 of 327 patients (98%) in the sintilimab-chemotherapy group versus 326 of 332 (98%) patients in the placebo-chemotherapy group. Rates of adverse events related to treatment, grade ≥3, were 60% (196/327) and 55% (181/332) in the sintilimab-chemotherapy and placebo-chemotherapy groups, respectively. Conclusions Compared with placebo, sintilimab in combination with cisplatin plus paclitaxel showed significant benefits in overall survival and progression free survival as first line treatment in patients with advanced or metastatic oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Similar benefits of sintilimab with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil seem promising. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03748134 .

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are the strongest response predictors to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) therapy, but knowledge of the EGFR mutation frequency on lung adenocarcinoma is still limited to retrospective studies. The PIONEER study (NCT01185314) is a prospective molecular epidemiology study in Asian patients with newly diagnosed advanced lung adenocarcinoma, aiming to prospectively analyze EGFR mutation status in IIIB/IV treatment-naïve lung adenocarcinomas in Asia. We report the mainland China subset results. Eligible patients (≥20 yrs old, IIIB/IV adenocarcinoma and treatment-naïve) were registered in 17 hospitals in mainland China. EGFR was tested for mutations by amplification refractory mutation system using biopsy samples. Demographic and clinical characteristics were collected for subgroup analyses. A total of 747 patients were registered. Successful EGFR mutation analysis was performed in 741, with an overall mutation rate of 50.2%. The EGFR active mutation rate is 48.0% (with 1.3% of combined active and resistance mutations). Tobacco use (>30 pack-year vs. 0-10 pack-year, OR 0.27, 95%CI: 0.17-0.42) and regional lymph nodes involvement (N3 vs. N0, OR 0.47, 95%CI: 0.29-0.76) were independent predictors of EGFR mutation in multivariate analysis. However, even in regular smokers, the EGFR mutation frequency was 35.3%. The EGFR mutation frequency was similar between diverse biopsy sites and techniques. The overall EGFR mutation frequency of the mainland China subset was 50.2%, independently associated with the intensity of tobacco use and regional lymph nodes involvement. The relatively high frequency of EGFR mutations in the mainland China subset suggest that any effort to obtain tissue sample for EGFR mutation testing should be encouraged.