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Background: Patients with recurrent/metastatic endometrial cancer that progresses after chemotherapy have limited treatment options and poor outcomes. Preclinical data suggest the oral mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor everolimus may provide clinical benefit in these patients. Methods: In this multicenter, open-label, phase 2 study, patients with advanced or metastatic endometrial cancer refractory to one or two previous chemotherapy regimens received everolimus 10 mg per day until progression or unacceptable toxicity. Primary end point was the non-progressive disease rate at 3 months. Secondary end points included duration of response, progression-free, and overall survival (OS), and safety. Results: Forty-four patients were enrolled (median age, 65 years); 66% received one previous chemotherapy regimen. The 3-month non-progressive disease rate was 36% (95% confidence interval 22–52%), including two patients (5%) with partial response (PR). At 6 months, two additional patients experienced PR. Median duration of response was 3.1 months. Median progression-free and OS were 2.8 months and 8.1 months, respectively. The most common adverse events were anaemia (100%), fatigue (93%), hypercholesterolaemia (81%), and lymphopenia (81%). Conclusion: Everolimus demonstrated efficacy and acceptable tolerability in patients with chemotherapy-refractory advanced or metastatic endometrial cancer. These results support the further development of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-targeted therapies in endometrial cancer.

Backround: Patients with metastatic endometrial carcinoma have a poor prognosis and PIK3CA mutations and amplifications are common in these cancers. This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of the pure PI3K inhibitor BKM120 in advanced or recurrent endometrial carcinoma. Methods: This phase II, multicentre, single-arm, double strata (histological low grade (LG) or high grade (HG)) open-label study enrolled patients with histologically confirmed advanced or recurrent endometrial carcinoma who had received not more than one prior chemotherapy regimen. Patients received initially BKM120 100 mg tablets once daily. Primary end points were proportion of patients free of progression at 2 months (HG strata) or at 3 months (LG strata), objective response rate (ORR), and safety. Results: A total of 40 patients were enrolled, of whom 16 patients had received BKM120 at 100 mg. Because of high toxicities (cutaneous rash (54%), depressive events (47%), and anxiety (40%), the IDMC has proposed to stop recruitment at 100 mg and to continue the clinical trial with a lower dose of 60 mg per day. In addition, 24 patients (median age 67 years old) were newly enrolled (14 in the LG strata and 10 in the HG strata). Rate of nonprogression at 2 months in the HG strata was 70% and at 3 months was 60% in the LG strata. Median progression-free survival (PFS) for all patients is 4.5 months (CI 95% 2.8–6.1), and the median PFS for LG strata is 8.3 months compared with 3.8 months for the HG strata. No response was reported. At 60 mg per day, the most commonly reported treatment-related adverse events (AEs) were hyperglycaemia (58%), cognitive (31%), digestive (28%), hepatic liver functions (26%), and rash (23%). The most commonly reported treatment-related grade ⩾3 AEs were HTA (17%), hyperglycaemia (17%), and increased alanine aminotransferase (24%). Five patients (21%) stopped BKM120 for toxicity. Conclusions: The BKM120 was associated with an unfavourable safety profile and minimal antitumour activity in monotherapy in advanced or recurrent endometrial carcinoma. The clinical trial was stopped before end of recruitment for toxicity.

Background: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare tumours for which treatment options are limited in the advanced setting. Histone deacetylase inhibitors have shown activity in preclinical models of STS. Methods: We conducted a single-arm, open-label, multicentre phase II study to assess the efficacy and tolerability of panobinostat given orally, 40 mg thrice weekly in patients with advanced pretreated STS. The primary endpoint was the 3-month progression-free rate. Results: Forty-seven STS patients were enrolled between January 2010 and December 2010. Median age was 59 (range 21–79) years, 22 (47%) patients were males. Panobinostat dose was lowered to 20 mg thrice weekly after nine patients were enrolled, based on the recommendation of an independent safety committee. The most common grade 3/4 adverse events were thrombocytopenia, fatigue, lymphopenia and anaemia. Forty-five patients were evaluable for the primary endpoint. Among them, nine patients (20%, 95% CI (10–35%)) were progression-free at 3 months. No partial response was seen, but 17 patients (36%) had stable disease (SD) as their best response. Six patients were progression-free at 6 months. Conclusion: Panobinostat was poorly tolerated at 40 mg thrice a week. Efficacy in unselected advanced STS was limited, although some patients had prolonged SD.

Background: Preliminary data indicate that the molecular epidemiology of localised gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) may be different from that of advanced GIST. We sought to investigate the molecular epidemiology of sarcomas, including GIST, in the Rhone-Alpes region in France. Patients and methods: A prospective and exhaustive study in the Rhone-Alpes Region in France to assess the precise incidence of primary sarcomas with systematic centralised pathological review and molecular analysis was conducted for 2 consecutive years. Results: Among 760 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of sarcoma, 131 (17%) had a GIST. The majority of patients had gastric primaries (61%). Mutational analysis could be performed in 106 tumour samples (74%), and 71 (67%) had exon 11 mutations. PDGFRA mutations were found in 16% of cases, which is twice as high as previously reported for advanced GIST. Conclusion: Data indicate that PDGFRA mutations in localised GIST may be twice as high as what was previously reported in patients with advanced disease. This finding may have important consequences for patients offered adjuvant imatinib, although most of these tumours are in the low-risk group.

The development of guidelines is one of the core activities of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and European Society of Gynaecologial Oncology (ESGO), as part of the mission of both societies to improve the quality of care for patients with cancer across Europe. ESMO and ESGO jointly developed clinically relevant and evidence-based recommendations in several selected areas in order to improve the quality of care for women with ovarian cancer. The ESMO–ESGO consensus conference on ovarian cancer was held on April 12–14, 2018 in Milan, Italy, and comprised a multidisciplinary panel of 40 leading experts in the management of ovarian cancer. Before the conference, the expert panel worked on five clinically relevant questions regarding ovarian cancer relating to each of the following four areas: pathology and molecular biology, early-stage and borderline tumours, advanced stage disease and recurrent disease. Relevant scientific literature, as identified using a systematic search, was reviewed in advance. During the consensus conference, the panel developed recommendations for each specific question and a consensus was reached. The recommendations presented here are thus based on the best available evidence and expert agreement. This article presents the recommendations of this ESMO–ESGO consensus conference, together with a summary of evidence supporting each recommendation.

Introduction/BackgroundDetecting tumor-specific genetic alterations in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) obtained from cancer patients allows for a quantification of the tumoral fraction, i.e. the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). Previous studies in metastatic cancer patients showed that early changes of this fraction during therapy are indicative of therapeutic response. We tested this hypothesis on cfDNA samples collected in the GANNET53 clinical trial (FP7, funded by the European Commission, grant no 602602).MethodologyPatients with high-grade serous/endometrioid and/or undifferentiated PROC were recruited for treatment with weekly paclitaxel with or without Hsp90-inhibitor ganetespib. Archival biopsy samples were used for tumor TP53 genotyping. CfDNA was prospectively collected prior to treatment at baseline (cycle 1 day 1, C1D1), 24 hours later (cycle 1 day 2, C1D2) and after 4 and 8 weeks, at day 1 of cycle 2 (C2D1) and 3 (C3D1) respectively. Targeted TP53 resequencing was performed on cfDNA and allelic frequencies of the known TP53 variant (TP53 VAF) were quantified and correlated with clinical outcome.ResultsFor 125 of the 133 randomized patients, at least 1 C1D1 cfDNA sample was available. For 119 tumor samples, TP53 genotyping was successful and identified deleterious TP53 mutations in 106 patients (89.1%). The median ctDNA level was 1.82% (IQR:0.17–8.34%) at C1D1 which decreased significantly after 4–8 weeks of therapy. Overall, ctDNA was detectable in 64.6% (64/99) of baseline samples. Baseline CA125 did not differ between cases with and without detectable ctDNA at C1D1. Detection of ctDNA at C1D1 (HR 2.3; 95%CI:1.4–3.9), C1D2 (HR 2.2; 95%CI:1.3–3.9) and C2D1 (HR 2.8; 95%CI:1.6–4.9) predicted a worse overall survival. A subgroup of patients for whom TP53 ctDNA was undetectable at C2D1 or C3D1 (14/64) had a high overall response rate of 64.2%.ConclusionQuantification of TP53 mutations in cfDNA of PROC patients has prognostic value at baseline. Favorable early changes during treatment may predict therapeutic response.DisclosureThe presenting author, A.Vanderstichele, has no conflict of interest.

Introduction/BackgroundIn the Phase III SOLO1 first-line trial, maintenance therapy with the PARP inhibitor olaparib provided a substantial progression-free survival (PFS) benefit to advanced ovarian cancer (OC) patients who have a BRCA1/2 mutation (BRCAm) and are in complete or partial response to first-line chemotherapy (Moore K et al. N Engl J Med 2018). VEGF inhibitor may increase PARP sensitivity, particularly in some OC patients with BRCA wild type (Liu JF et al. Lancet Oncol 2014). PAOLA-1/ENGOT-ov25 (NCT02477644) is the first Phase III trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a PARP inhibitor with bevacizumab as first-line maintenance therapy, and in patients regardless of BRCAm status.MethodologyPAOLA-1 is a randomized, double-blind, international Phase III trial. Eligible patients had newly diagnosed, advanced (FIGO stage IIIA-IV) high-grade serous or endometrioid ovarian, fallopian tube or peritoneal cancer. Patients had no evidence of disease or were in partial response following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy plus bevacizumab. Bevacizumab was to be given for up to 15 months, including the initial combination with chemotherapy. 806 patients were randomized (2:1) in maintenance therapy to olaparib (300 mg bid) or placebo plus bevacizumab (15 mg/kg, d1, q3w), stratified by first-line treatment outcome and tumour BRCAm status. The primary endpoint is investigator-assessed PFS (modified RECIST v1.1). The 458 PFS events required for the primary analysis to show significance at the two-sided 5% level with an estimated >80% power have been reached in March 2019. Database lock was in July and analyses are ongoing.ResultsThe LBA will report: investigator-assessed PFS, PFS by BRCAm/HRD status, health- related quality of life, and safety and tolerability results.ConclusionPAOLA-1 will demonstrate whether addition of olaparib to bevacizumab maintenance therapy following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy plus bevacizumab provides a clinically meaningful benefit to OC patients.DisclosureP Harter declares honoraria from AstraZeneca, Roche, Sotio, Tesaro, Stryker, ASCO, Zai Lab and MSD; and consultancy/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Roche, Tesaro, Lilly, Clovis, Immunogen and MSD/Merck. Marie Ange Mouret-Reynier declares no conflicts of interest. S Pignata declares honoraria from Roche, AstraZeneca, MSD, Pfizer, Incyte, Novartis, PharmaMar, Clovis and Tesaro; and travel expenses from Roche, AstraZeneca and MSD. Claire Cropet declares no conflicts of interest. A Gonzalez-Martin declares consulting/advisory board fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Pfizer, ImmunoGen, PharmaMar, MSD, Genmad and Novartis; and speaker bureau/expert testimony fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, MSD Tesaro and PharmaMar. Gerhard Bogner declares consulting/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca Tesaro and Roche; and travel expenses from GSK, Roche, Pharmamar, AstraZeneca and Tesaro. K Fujiwara declares honoraria from AstraZeneca, Chugai Roche, Zeria, Taiho, Nihon Kayaku, Kyowahakko Kirin, Janssen and Daiichi Sankyo; consulting/advisory board fees from Pfizer, MSD and Eisai; research funding from AstraZeneca, MSD, Chugai Roche, Eisai and Kaken; and travel expenses from Pfizer. I Vergote declares consulting/advisory board fees from Advaxis, BIOCAD, Eisai, MSD, Roche, Genmab, Roche, PharmaMar, Millenium Pharmaceuticals, Clovis, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Oncoinvent, ImmunoGen and Sotio; contracted research with Oncoinvent and Genmab; research funding from Amgen, Roche and Stichting tegen Kanker; and Takeda Oncology, PharmaMar, Genmab, Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis and Immunogen. N Colombo declares honoraria from Roche, AstraZeneca, PharmaMar, Tesaro, Clovis, Pfizer, MSD, BIOCAD and Takeda; consulting/advisory board fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, PharmaMar, Tesaro, Clovis, Pfizer, MSD, BIOCAD, Takeda; and travel expenses from PharmaMar, Tesaro and Roche. J Mäenpää declares honoraria from Roche, AstraZeneca and Tesaro; consultancy/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis and MSD; and travel expenses from Roche. Anne Floquet declares consultancy/advisory board fees from GSK, AstraZeneca and Clovis; and travel expenses from Roche, GSK and AstraZeneca. Ahmed El-Balat declares honoraria from AstraZeneca, Roche, Pharmamar, MSD, Tesaro, Clovis; and consultancy/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca and Roche. D Lorusso declares honoraria from Merck; consultancy/advisory board fees from Merck, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Immunogen, PharmaMar and Roche; research funding from Clovis, PharmaMar, Merck and Roche; and travel expenses from Tesaro, Roche and PharmaMar. EM Guerra Alia declares consultancy/advisory board fees from Roche, Clovis and AstraZeneca; and travel expenses from Roche and Baxter. Michel Fabro declares honoraria from Tesaro and AstraZeneca; and consultancy/advisory board fees from Tesaro and AstraZeneca. Barbara Schmalfeldt declares honoraria from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Ethicon, MSD; consultancy/advisory fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Ethicon, MDS; speaker bureau/expert testimony fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Ethicon, MDS; research grant funding from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Ethicon, MDS and travel expenses from Roche, AstraZeneca, Tesaro, Clovis, Ethicon, MDS. Anne Claire Hardy Blessard declares honoraria from AstraZeneca, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche and Tesaro. Ingo Runnebaum declares honoraria from AstraZeneca. I Ray-Coquard declares honoraria from AstraZeneca, Clovis, Tesaro and PharmaMar; consulting/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Roche, Clovis, Tesaro, Genmab, PharmaMar, MSD and Pfizer; research funding from MSD; and travel expenses from AstraZeneca and Roche; consulting/advisory board fees from Roche; and travel expenses from Roche, MSD, Tesaro and AstraZeneca. E Pujade-Lauraine declares honoraria from AstraZeneca and Tesaro; consulting/advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Roche, Clovis, Tesaro, Genmab, Incyte, MSD and Pfizer; research funding from AstraZeneca, Roche and Tesaro; and travel expenses from AstraZeneca, Roche and Tesaro.

A risk model for febrile neutropenia (FN) after conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy, based on early (day 5) lymphopenia and the dose of chemotherapy, has been described. A risk index based on parameters available at day 1 would be easier in daily practice. The objectives of this work were (1) to investigate a risk model for FN using only day 1 blood cell count and (2) to compare the day 1 and day 5 risk models. Three series of patients were used for the delineation and/or validation of these two risk models: (1) the exhaustive cohort of 950 patients treated in the Department of Medicine of the CLB in 1996 (CLB-1996 series), (2) the Elypse 1 series, a prospective series of 321 patients treated in community hospitals and regional cancer centres, and (3) a previously reported Elypse 0 series of 329 patients. Day 1 blood cell count was available in all three series, while day 5 blood cell count was available only in the Elypse 0 and 1 series. In the CLB-1996 series, 92 (9.7%) patients experienced FN; only chemotherapy dose and day 1 lymphopenia ⩽700  μ l −1 had an independent prognostic value for FN in multivariate analysis. In patients with both risk factors (‘high-risk group’), the incidence of FN was 44, 50 and 61% in the CLB-1996. Elypse 1 and 0 series, respectively, indicating that the ‘day 1’ risk model enables one to identify patients at high-risk for FN. Besides, the observed incidence of FN in the high-risk group of the ‘day 5’ model (i.e. patients with day 5 lymphopenia ⩽700  μ l −1 and receiving high-risk CT) was 45 and 69% in the Elypse 0 and 1 series, respectively. In the Elypse 1 and 0 series, 15 and 12% of all patients who experienced FN were in the high-risk group of the ‘day 1’ risk model as compared to 25 and 62% for the high-risk group of the ‘day 5’ risk model. Both day 1 and day 5 lymphopenia are associated with an increased risk of FN in patients treated with chemotherapy. The ‘day 1’ model identifies a small population of patients at high risk for FN, but has a lower sensitivity than the day 5 model.

High grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas are associated with a very poor prognosis. Although large surgical resection is the standard of care, the optimal adjuvant strategy remains unclear. A retrospective analysis of patients with localized high grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas (stages I–III) treated in 10 French Sarcoma Group centers was conducted. 39 patients with localized high grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas treated from 2008 to 2016 were included. 24/39 patients (61.5%) were stage I at diagnosis. 38/39 patients underwent surgical resection, with total hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy completed in 26/38 (68%). Surgeries were mostly resection complete (R0, 23/38, 60%) and microscopically incomplete resection (R1, 6/38, 16%). 22 patients (58%) underwent postoperative radiotherapy (including brachytherapy in 11 cases), and 11 (29%) underwent adjuvant chemotherapy. After a median follow-up of 33 months (range 2.6–112), 17/39 patients were alive and 21/39 (54%) had relapsed (9 local relapses and 16 metastases). The 3 year and 5 year overall survival rates were 49.8% and 31.1%, respectively, and 3 year and 5 year disease free survival rates were 42.7% and 16.0%, respectively. Median overall survival and disease free survival were 32.7 (95% CI 16.3–49.1) and 23 (4.4–41.6) months, respectively. Medians were, respectively, 46.7 months and 39.0 months among those who underwent adjuvant radiotherapy and 41.0 months and 10.3 months for those who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy. In multivariate analysis, adjuvant radiotherapy was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (P=0.012) and disease free survival (P=0.036). Chemotherapy, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics I–II stages, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-performance status 0 correlated with improved overall survival (P=0.034, P=0.002, P=0.006), and absence of vascular invasion (P=0.014) was associated with better disease free survival. The standard treatment of primary localized high grade endometrial stromal sarcoma and undifferentiated uterine sarcomas is total hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy. The current study shows that adjuvant radiotherapy and adjuvant chemotherapy appear to improve overall survival. A prospective large study is warranted to validate this therapeutic management.

Background: An increasing number and proportion of cancer patients with apparently localised disease are treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy in contemporary oncology practice. In a pilot study of radiation-induced sarcoma (RIS) patients, we demonstrated that chemotherapy was associated with a reduced time to development of RIS. We now present a multi-centre collaborative study to validate this association. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of RIS cases across five large international sarcoma centres between 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2014. The primary endpoint was time to development of RIS. Results: We identified 419 patients with RIS. Chemotherapy for the first malignancy was associated with a shorter time to RIS development (HR 1.37; 95% CI: 1.08–1.72; P =0.009). In the multi-variable model, older age (HR 2.11; 95% CI 1.83–2.43; P <0.001) and chemotherapy for the first malignancy (HR 1.61; 95% CI 1.26–2.05; P <0·001) were independently associated with a shorter time to RIS. Anthracyclines and alkylating agents significantly contribute to the effect. Conclusions: This study confirms an association between chemotherapy given for the first malignancy and a shorter time to development of RIS.