BACKGROUNDAmong patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), MET exon 14 skipping mutations occur in 3 to 4% and MET amplifications occur in 1 to 6%. Capmatinib, a selective inhibitor of the MET receptor, has shown activity in cancer models with various types of MET activation. METHODSWe conducted a multiple-cohort, phase 2 study evaluating capmatinib in patients with MET-dysregulated advanced NSCLC. Patients were assigned to cohorts on the basis of previous lines of therapy and MET status (MET exon 14 skipping mutation or MET amplification according to gene copy number in tumor tissue). Patients received capmatinib (400-mg tablet) twice daily. The primary end point was overall response (complete or partial response), and the key secondary end point was response duration; both end points were assessed by an independent review committee whose members were unaware of the cohort assignments. RESULTSA total of 364 patients were assigned to the cohorts. Among patients with NSCLC with a MET exon 14 skipping mutation, overall response was observed in 41% (95% confidence interval [CI], 29 to 53) of 69 patients who had received one or two lines of therapy previously and in 68% (95% CI, 48 to 84) of 28 patients who had not received treatment previously; the median duration of response was 9.7 months (95% CI, 5.6 to 13.0) and 12.6 months (95% CI, 5.6 to could not be estimated), respectively. Limited efficacy was observed in previously treated patients with MET amplification who had a gene copy number of less than 10 (overall response in 7 to 12% of patients). Among patients with MET amplification and a gene copy number of 10 or higher, overall response was observed in 29% (95% CI, 19 to 41) of previously treated patients and in 40% (95% CI, 16 to 68) of those who had not received treatment previously. The most frequently reported adverse events were peripheral edema (in 51%) and nausea (in 45%); these events were mostly of grade 1 or 2. CONCLUSIONSCapmatinib showed substantial antitumor activity in patients with advanced NSCLC with a MET exon 14 skipping mutation, particularly in those not treated previously. The efficacy in MET-amplified advanced NSCLC was higher in tumors with a high gene copy number than in those with a low gene copy number. Low-grade peripheral edema and nausea were the main toxic effects. (Funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals; GEOMETRY mono-1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02414139.

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Background: Immunotherapy targeting programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) has become the forefront strategy for systemic therapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. PD-L1 expression on tumor cells has been reported as an eligible biomarker of response to such immunotherapies. However, useful biomarkers of response to atezolizumab, an anti PD-L1 antibody, are unestablished. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed clinicopathological characteristics including PD-L1 expression in NSCLC patients treated with atezolizumab from January 2018 at our department. In addition, we investigated the prognostic effect of the following pretreatment immune-inflammation-nutritional parameters: prognostic nutritional index (PNI), neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS).Results: Twenty-four patients were enrolled in this study. The median age was 64.5 (range, 49-82) years, and 17 (70.8%) were men. Among this cohort, two patients showed high PD-L1 expression (≥50%), seven showed low (1-49%) expression, and the other 15 patients showed 0% or unknown expression. Survival analyses showed that low PNI was an independent predictor of short time to treatment failure (TTF) [hazard ratio (HR) =6.87, P=0.0052], and high NLR (HR =3.53, P=0.0375) and high mGPS (HR =23.2, P=0.0038) were independent prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) after atezolizumab. Furthermore, the NLR high/mGPS high group had far worse prognosis than the NLR low/mGPS low group. Conclusions:The therapeutic and prognostic effect of atezolizumab may depend on the host immunenutritional status. This study provided novel but retrospective evidence, and thus further prospective studies are needed.

Background: VATS is currently the most popular form of access for lung cancer resection in the UK. However, there is limited comparative information from high quality randomised controlled trials and no information on early oncologic outcomes for quality assurance for a minimal access approach. VIOLET is the largest randomised trial conducted to date to compare clinical efficacy, safety and oncologic outcomes of VATS versus open surgery for lung cancer. Method: VIOLET is a parallel group randomised trial conducted across 9 UK thoracic surgery centres. Participants with known or suspected primary lung cancer were randomised in a 1:1 ratio to VATS (one to four ports) or open lobectomy. Randomisation was stratified by surgeon. Patients within clinical stage cT1-3, N0-1 and M0 using TNM 8 with disease suitable for VATS or open surgery were eligible to join the trial. We report on early outcomes in the period from randomisation to hospital discharge after surgery. Result: From Jul 2015 to Feb 2019, 2,109 patients were screened to randomise 503 participants to VATS (n¼247) or open (n¼256) lobectomy. The mean age (SD) was 69 (8.8) years and 249 (49.5%) were male. Baseline clinical T category was cT1 333 (67.3%), cT2 125 (25.2%), cT3 37 (7.5%) with cN0 466 (94%) and cN1 30 (6%). Lobectomy was undertaken in 221 (89.5%) patients randomised to VATS and 232 (90.6%) patients randomised to open surgery. The in-hospital mortality rate was 1.4% (7/502) and the conversion rate from VATS to open was 5.7% (14/246) with the main reasons listed as pleural adhesions (n¼4) and bleeding (n¼4). There were no differences in R0 resection; which was 98.8% ( 218/223) in the VATS group and 97.4% (228/234) in the open group; P¼0.839 or in nodal upstaging from cN0/1 to pN2 disease which was observed in 6.2% (15/244) of the VATS group and 4.8% (12/252) of the open group; P¼0.503. The median (visual analogue) pain score was 4 (interquartile range, IQR 2 to 5) in both groups on day one with 3 (1 to 5) in the VATS group and 4 (2 to 5) in the open group on day two. A significant reduction of overall in-hospital complications was observed in patients receiving VATS at 32.8% (81/247) compared to open 44.3% (113/255) surgery; P¼0.008 without any difference in serious adverse events between the two groups, which was 8.1% (20/247) for VATS and 7.8% (20/255) for open surgery; P¼0.897. Patients randomised to VATS had a shorter median (IQR) length of stay of 4 (3 to 7) versus 5 (3 to 8) days compared to patients randomised to open surgery, P¼0.008. Conclusion:In early stage lung cancer, VATS lobectomy is associated with significantly lower in-hospital complications and shorter length of stay compared to open lobectomy. This was achieved without any compromise to early oncologic outcomes (pathologic complete resection and upstaging of mediastinal lymph nodes) nor any difference in serious adverse events in the early post-operative period.

BackgroundStudies have suggested that chemotherapy after immune checkpoint inhibitors may confer an improved response for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, potential selection bias in such studies has not been addressed. We therefore applied propensity score analysis to investigate the efficacy of chemotherapy after PD-1 inhibitor treatment (CAP) compared with chemotherapy alone.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective observational cohort study for patients treated at 47 institutions across Japan between April 1, 2014 and July 31, 2017. Eligible patients had advanced or recurrent NSCLC who have undergone chemotherapy. Patients subsequently treated with chemotherapy (docetaxel with or without ramucirumab, S-1 or pemetrexed) either after PD-1 inhibitor therapy (CAP cohort) or alone (control cohort) were included. The primary end point was objective response rate (ORR). Inverse probability weighting (IPW) was applied to adjust for potential confounding factors.ResultsA total of 1439 patients (243 and 1196 in the CAP and control cohorts, respectively) was available for unadjusted analysis. Several baseline characteristics—including age, histology,EGFRorALKgenetic alterations, and brain metastasis—differed significantly between the two cohorts. After adjustment for patient characteristics with the IPW method, ORR was 18.9% for the CAP cohort and 11.0% for the control cohort (ORR ratio 1.71; 95% CI 1.19 to 2.46; p=0.004). IPW-adjusted Kaplan-Meier curves showed that median progression-free survival (PFS) for the CAP and control cohorts was 2.8 and 2.7 months (IPW-adjusted HR 0.95; 95% CI 0.80 to 1.12; p=0.55), and median overall survival (OS) was 9.2 and 10.4 months (IPW-adjusted HR 1.05; 95% CI 0.86 to 1.28; p=0.63), respectively.ConclusionsAfter accounting for selection bias by propensity score analysis, CAP showed a significantly higher ORR compared with chemotherapy alone, with the primary end point of ORR being achieved. However, these results did not translate into a PFS or OS advantage, suggesting that prior administration of PD-1 inhibitors may result in a synergistic antitumor effect with subsequent chemotherapy, but that such an effect is transient. CAP therefore does not appear to achieve durable tumor control or confer a lasting survival benefit.