Publication details

Pembrolizumab in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma with ECOG Performance Status 2: A Real-World Study from the ARON-2 Project

Authors	RIZZO Alessandro MONTEIRO Fernando Sabino Marques URUN Yueksel MASSARI Francesco PARK Se Hoon BOURLON Maria T POPRACH Alexandr RIZZO Mimma TAKESHITA Hideki GIANNATEMPO Patrizia SOARES Andrey ROVIELLO Giandomenico MOLINA-CERRILLO Javier CARROZZA Francesco ABAHSSAIN Halima MESSINA Carlo KOPP Ray Manneh PICHLER Renate FORMISANO Luigi TURAL Deniz ATZORI Francesco CALABRO Fabio KANESVARAN Ravindran BUTI Sebastiano SANTONI Matteo
Year of publication	2024
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Targeted Oncology
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Medicine
Citation
Web	https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11523-024-01089-2
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11523-024-01089-2
Keywords	Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma; Pembrolizumab
Description	Background The benefit of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for poor performance status patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma (UC) remains unknown. Objective In the present sub-analysis of the ARON-2 study, we investigated the role of pembrolizumab for advanced UC patients with ECOG (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group) performance status (ECOG-PS) 2. Patients and Methods Patients aged >= 18 years with a cytologically and/or histologically confirmed diagnosis of advanced UC progressing or recurring after platinum-based therapy and treated with pembrolizumab between 1 January 2016 to 1 April 2024 were included. In this sub-analysis we focused on patients with ECOG-PS 2. Results We included 1,040 patients from the ARON-2 dataset; of these, 167 patients (16%) presented an ECOG-PS 2. The median overall survival (OS) was 14.8 months (95% confidence interval (CI) 12.5-16.1) in the overall study population, 18.2 months (95% CI 15.8-22.2) in patients with ECOG-PS 0-1, and 3.7 months (95% CI 3.2-5.2) in subjects with ECOG-PS 2 (p < 0.001). The median progression-free survival (PFS) in the overall study population was 5.3 months (95% CI 4.3-97.1), 6.2 months (95% CI 5.5-97.1) in patients with ECOG-PS 0-1, and 2.8 months (95% CI 2.1-3.4) in patients with ECOG-PS 2. Among the latter, liver metastases and progressive disease during first-line therapy were significant predictors of OS at both univariate and multivariate analyses. For PFS, univariate and multivariate analyses showed a prognostic role for lung metastases, liver metastases, and progressive disease during first-line therapy. Conclusions This large real-world evidence study suggests the effectiveness of second-line pembrolizumab for mUC patients with poor performance status. The presence of liver metastases and progressive disease during first-line therapy is associated with worse clinical outcomes and, thus, should be taken into account when making treatment decisions in clinical practice.