Response to immune checkpoint inhibition as monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy in metastatic ROS1-rearranged lung cancers.

Authors

Noura J. Choudhury

Noura J. Choudhury

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Noura J. Choudhury , Jaime Laurel Schneider , Tejas Patil , Viola Weijia Zhu , Debra A. Goldman , Soo-Ryum Yang , Christina Falcon , Andrew Do , Yunan Nie , Andrew J. Plodkowski , Jamie E. Chaft , Subba Digumarthy , Natasha Rekhtman , Maria E. Arcila , Alexia Iasonos , Sai-Hong Ignatius Ou , Jessica Jiyeong Lin , Alexander E. Drilon

Organizations

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA, University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, CO, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Irvine, Orange, CA, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY

Research Funding

No funding received
None

Background: ROS1 fusions are oncogenic drivers in various cancers types, including 1-3% of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs). Immunotherapy approvals for NSCLC include ROS1-rearranged carcinomas, but the activity of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) as monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy (chemo-ICI) therapy, as well as the immunophenotypic characteristics of these tumors, have not been described in a large data set. Methods: In this multi-institutional study, patients with ROS1-rearranged NSCLC were identified retrospectively. Tumor PD-L1 expression and tumor mutational burden (TMB) were assessed as part of routine clinical care. In patients who received ICI monotherapy or chemo-ICI in the metastatic setting, time to treatment discontinuation (TTD) and objective response rate (ORR; RECIST v. 1.1) were calculated. TTD was assessed with Kaplan-Meier methods; patients remaining on treatment were censored at last follow up. Results: 184 patients with ROS1-rearranged NSCLC were identified. Among 146 PD-L1 evaluable cases, PD-L1 expression was < 1% in 60 (41%), 1-49% in 35 (24%) and ≥50% in 51 (35%) tumors. Ninety-two of 100 (92%) TMB-evaluable tumors had < 10 mutations/megabase (mut/Mb). TMB was significantly lower for ROS1-rearranged NSCLCs (n = 97) vs. ROS1-wild type tumors (n = 5,380) evaluated with next-generation sequencing using MSK-IMPACT (median 2.6 vs. 5.9 mut/Mb, p < 0.001). Twenty-eight patients received ICI monotherapy and 11 patients received chemo-ICI. The median TTD was 2.1 months (95% CI: 1.0-4.2; n = 28) for single-agent ICI therapy and 10 months (95% CI: 4.7-14.1; n = 11) for chemo-ICI therapy. The ORR was 13% (2/16 RECIST-evaluable; 95% CI: 2-38%) for ICI monotherapy and 83% (5/6 RECIST-evaluable; 95% CI: 36-100%) for chemo-ICI therapy. There was no difference in PD-L1 tumor expression (p = 0.9) or TMB (p = 0.8) between responders and non-responders and no correlation between PD-L1 tumor expression (rho = 0.16, p = 0.6) or TMB (rho = 0.03, p = 0.9) and maximum change in sum of target lesions. Conclusions: Most ROS1-rearranged NSCLCs have low or no PD-L1 expression and low TMB. The activity of checkpoint inhibitor monotherapy is disappointing in ROS1-driven NSCLC. In contrast, combination chemoimmunotherapy can achieve clinically meaningful activity.

Disclaimer

This material on this page is ©2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology, all rights reserved. Licensing available upon request. For more information, please contact licensing@asco.org

Abstract Details

Meeting

2021 ASCO Annual Meeting

Session Type

Poster Session

Session Title

Lung Cancer—Non-Small Cell Metastatic

Track

Lung Cancer

Sub Track

Metastatic Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer

Citation

J Clin Oncol 39, 2021 (suppl 15; abstr 9049)

DOI

10.1200/JCO.2021.39.15_suppl.9049

Abstract #

9049

Poster Bd #

Online Only

Abstract Disclosures