Neoadjuvant plus adjuvant treatment with target therapy and immunotherapy given in combination or sequence may have an anti-tumour activity and may reduce the risk of relapse in patients with high-risk resectable melanoma (stage III B / C / D and oligometastatic stage IV).
Melanoma represents a considerable health burden and an ongoing area of unmet need in oncology. Despite melanoma accounts for only 1% of diagnosed skin cancers, it is the cause of most skin cancer-related deaths. Until recently, limited effective treatment options were available to patients with advanced melanoma. Historically, response rates to conventional chemotherapy and immunomodulation therapy (interleukin-2 or interferon-γ) have been reported at approximately 5-19%. Adjuvant immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and target therapy improve outcomes of patients with high-risk resectable melanoma. It has recently been demonstrated that treatment with neoadjuvant and adjuvant targeted therapy (dabrafenib and trametinib) is associated with a high pathologic complete response (pCR) rate and improved outcomes over surgery alone. However, treatment with ICB has not been well studied in the neoadjuvant setting, despite preclinical studies suggesting that neoadjuvant administration of ICB is associated with improved survival and enhanced anti-tumour immune responses compared to the same therapy administered in the adjuvant setting. The advantage of neoadjuvant trials is the availability of blood and tumour tissue samples before and after systemic therapy for the conduct of novel mechanistic and biomarker studies in the circulation and the tumour microenvironment. Prospective neoadjuvant clinical trials with targeted (dabrafenib/trametinib combo) or immunotherapeutic agents (nivolumab alone or nivolumab/ipilimumab combo) and combinations are now running in a subgroup of highrisk melanoma patients with pooled overall promising preliminary results of high rates of pathologic complete responses (pCRs, 30-50%) and early data of positive correlation between pCR and relapse-free survival. Based on the available results to date, we aim to conduct a randomized, noncomparative phase II trial to define the role of neoadjuvant plus adjuvant target and immunotherapy, given in combination or sequence, in patients with high risk surgically resectable melanoma.This approach has the potential to define whether neoadjuvant treatment has antitumour activity and whether it reduces the risk of relapse after surgery.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
95
Cobimetinib 60 mg qd p.o. from week 1 to week 3 and week 5 to week 6. Week 4 off.
960 (arm A) /720 (arm B) mg bid p.o. from week 1 to week 6.
840 mg IV for 2 cycles for Arm B and C. After surgery in all arms 1200 mg IV for 52 weeks
Ospedale S.M. Annunziata - Azienda USL Toscana Centro
Bagno a Ripoli, Firenze, Italy
IRCCS - Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per la Cura e lo Studio dei Tumori (I.R.S.T) S.r.l.
Meldola, Forlì-Cesena, Italy
Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori
Milan, Milano, Italy
Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori "Fondazione Giovanni Pascale"
Naples, Naples, Italy
Pathologic Complete Response (pCR) rate (Centrally/Independently determined)
Defined as the lack of all signs of cancer in tissue samples removed during surgery
Time frame: At surgery (from week 8 to week 9)
Recurrence-free survival (RFS)
Defined as the time from randomisation to recurrence event or last follow-up
Time frame: At 2-years, 3-years and at the end of the study
Overall survival (OS)
Defined as the time from the date of randomisation to the date of death due to any cause
Time frame: From date of randomization until the date of first documented progression or date of death from any cause, whichever came first, assessed up to 5 years
pORR
Defined as the sum of pathologic complete responses (pCRs), near pathologic complete responses near pCRs) and pathologic partial responses (pPRs).
Time frame: At surgery (from week 8 to week 9) after neoadjuvant treatment and at disease relapse up to 5 years
Safety - adverse events
All AEs, Grade 3 to 4 AEs, serious adverse events (SAEs), deaths, AEs of special interest (AESIs), and AEs leading to treatment discontinuation or withdrawal from the study
Time frame: Continuosly during the trial while on treatment or within 30 days after the last study treatment
Molecular and immunophenotypic changes
Immunoscore, Circulating cytokines and chemokines profiling, Metabolomic profiling,Tumour mutational burden, Myeloid-derived suppressors cells, immune cell subtypes expression and lymphocyte activation, Additional analysis of protein levels (i.e. CCR5), DNA mutations, and/or mRNA analysis
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Istituto Oncologico Veneto
Padova, Padova, Italy
IRCCS San Martino - IST
Genova, Italy
Time frame: At baseline, prior to surgery, every 12 weeks during adjuvant treatment and at the disease relapse up to 5 years