Clinical Trial Evaluating FOLFIRI + Durvalumab vs FOLFIRI + Durvalumab and Tremelimumab in Second-line Treatment of Patients With Advanced Gastric or Gastro-oesophageal Junction Adenocarcinoma

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Trial end date: 2024-07-31

Summary

Gastric adenocarcinoma is the 4th most frequent cancer and the 2nd leading cause of cancer mortality. Most of the patients have metastatic, locally advanced or recurrent unresectable disease. So, systemic treatment remains an important issue especially since chemotherapy improves survival and quality of life (compared to best supportive care alone).

Second-line chemotherapy-based treatment improves overall survival (OS) as compared to best supportive care alone in patients with an acceptable general condition (performance status 0-2). Indeed, with docetaxel monotherapy there was a significant difference in overall survival for the chemotherapy arm with a median of 5.2 versus 3.6 months in best supportive care alone arm (HR=0.67, p=0.01). Irinotecan monotherapy also significantly improves overall survival compared to supportive care alone in a phase III study (4.0 versus 2.4 months; HR=0.48, 95%CI 0.25-0.92; p=0.012).

Based on a phase III trial FOLFIRI (5-FU plus irinotecan) is one most used regimen in second-line in European countries, especially in France. FFCD 0307 trial, a phase III comparing FOLFIRI-ECX (epirubicin-cisplatin-capecitabine) to the reverse sequence (ECX-FOLFIRI), showed that both sequences are possible.

Preliminary results in metastatic gastric cancer with anti-PD1 mAbs are highly promising. In a trial with pembrolizumab, only PD-L1 positive tumors were eligible to the treatment with a cut off at 1%. Thirty-nine patients were enrolled and 67% had received at least two prior chemotherapy regimens. The overall response rate was 22%. The median PFS and OS were 1.9 months and 11.4 months, respectively. KEYNOTE-059 Phase 2 multicohort study with pembrolizumab monotherapy in advanced gastric cancer treatment has been presented at ASCO 2017 meeting. Among 259 patients included in the trial response rate was 11.6%. OS was 5.6 months. Response rates were 15.5% in PDL1+ tumors versus 6.4% in PDL1- tumors and 57.1% in MSI tumors versus 9% in MSS tumors. Up until now, overlap between microsatellite instability and PD-L1 expression is unknown in gastric cancer. An anti-PD-L1 mAb (avelumab) was evaluated in a phase Ib expansion study (n=20, Japanese patients), with 15% of objective response rate and 11.9 weeks for progression-free survival. A second cohort with avelumab included 55 patients for maintenance therapy after first-line chemotherapy, with 7.3% of objective response rate and 14 weeks of PFS. Phase I/II CheckMate-032 evaluated nivolumab (anti-PD-1) ± ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) at different doses in advanced gastric cancer (17). The overall response rate was between 8% to 24% and the median OS between 4.8 to 6.9 months according to treatment arm.

Others anti-PD1/anti-PD-L1/anti-CTLA4 mAbs are also currently under investigation in gastric cancer alone or in combination with chemotherapy. Nevertheless, up until now there is no published data concerning ICI plus chemotherapy in gastric cancer. The present randomized multicentric non-comparative phase II study aimed to assess the rate of patients alive and without progression at 4 months with advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma, pre-treated with fluoropyrimidine + platinum +/- taxane, with two arms Folfiri plus durvalumab versus Folfiri plus durvalumab plus tremelimumab. Indeed, most patients in the French multicentric first-line GASTFOX trial (506 patients planned between 2017 and 2020) can be included in the second-line setting in the DURIGAST trial. Due to the lack of data concerning Folfiri plus durvalumab plus tremelimumab combination, a safety run-in phase will be performed at the beginning of the DURIGAST trial.

• Phase: Phase 2

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Federation Francophone de Cancerologie Digestive
• Collaborator: AstraZeneca
• Treatments: Antibodies, Monoclonal; Durvalumab; Irinotecan; Leucovorin; Tremelimumab