Rapid Administration Pilot for Infusing Dinutuximab

Overview

Dinutuximab is an immunotherapy that has greatly improved outcomes for children with high-risk neuroblastoma and is now a standard part of treatment for both newly diagnosed and relapsed disease. However, the medication is typically given through an intravenous (IV) infusion over 10-20 hours a day for four consecutive days, requiring prolonged hospital stays that place a significant burden on children, families, and healthcare resources. Earlier studies of dinutuximab, as well as experience with a similar immunotherapy, suggest that these medications can be safely given over a much shorter period of time. This study is evaluating whether children with high-risk neuroblastoma can safely receive dinutuximab over five hours or less. Early results have been encouraging. The first group of patients successfully received most treatments with dinutuximab in about two hours. Children experienced very low pain levels and required approximately 78% less opioid pain medication compared with the traditional longer infusion. Several patients were able to receive treatment as outpatients without requiring hospital admission, while hospitalizations that did occur were primarily related to chemotherapy or other non-medical reasons rather than the rapid infusion itself. The study is now expanded to further evaluate the safety of rapid infusion across multiple treatment cycles at different centers in the United States. Researchers will also examine how the drug is processed by the body, whether the immune system develops antibodies against the treatment, and whether the faster infusion continues to reduce the need for opioid pain medication. In addition, children and their caregivers will complete questionnaires about symptoms and treatment experiences to better understand the impact of the faster dinutuximab infusion on quality of life and the overall treatment experience.

Neuroblastoma is the most common extra-cranial solid tumor of childhood. While it comprises only 8% of all childhood cancer cases, neuroblastoma is responsible for 12% of cancer deaths in children under 15 years of age. Approximately 50% of neuroblastoma patients are classified as high-risk, and over half of these children succumb to their disease despite intensive multi-modal therapy. The prognosis is worse for patients whose disease is refractory to initial therapy or who experience a recurrence of their tumor, as the majority of these patients cannot be cured of their disease. However, rates of event free survival and overall survival have improved over the past decades with the introduction of dinutuximab. Dinutuximab is a chimeric monoclonal antibody that targets disialoganglioside (GD2) receptors. It has become an integral modality in the treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma (HR NBL) in up-front therapy and in the setting of relapsed or refractory disease. Additionally, there are numerous ongoing trials that include dinutuximab as part of the backbone therapy or in combination with other agents to improve tumor response in HR NBL patients. A limiting factor for the use of dinutuximab has been the management of infusion-related toxicities. GD2 is expressed on neurons, skin melanocytes, and peripheral pain fibers of human tissues, which is evident in the common manifestation of pain during infusions. Other most common adverse effects include hypotension, capillary leak syndrome, and infusion-related reactions. These toxicities typically last during the standardized infusion duration of 10-20 hours but typically do not correlate with plasma levels. Pain that occurs during the infusion typically resolves shortly after the infusion is completed, despite the fact that dinutuximab persists in the circulation, which suggests that pain may be related to infusion rate rather than drug exposure (AUC). Due to the lengthy infusion duration and high frequency of side effects, dinutuximab infusions currently require significant hospital resources including nursing care, opioid infusions, around the clock supportive care medications, and a hospital stay for a minimum of 4-5 days. With the expectation of repeated cycles of dinutuximab for different protocols in HR NBL treatment and with the expansion of dinutuximab studies in other GD2 positive tumors, there is a need to improve the administration and management of dinutuximab for future practicality and patient durability. A different anti-GD2 antibody naxitamab with a similar side effect profile to dinutuximab has been FDA approved for administration in the outpatient setting. Therefore, there is potential for dinutuximab to be administered in the outpatient setting. Although some studies have attempted to modify the administration of dinutuximab dosing and infusion durations, none have focused on shortening infusion time in the pediatric setting. Dinutuximab was shown to significantly improve survival in children with HR NBL when administered after dose-intensive combination chemotherapy and high-dose myeloablative therapy with autologous stem cell rescue, and when combined with immunomodulating agents sargramostim and aldesleukin (IL-2) in the randomized phase 3 clinical trial, ANBL 0032. This Children's Oncology Group (COG) trial found that the combination of dinutuximab with sargramostim and IL-2 enhanced antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity when given with isotretinoin in post-consolidation therapy. The addition of immunotherapy to isotretinoin in the post-consolidation phase was found to be significantly superior to isotretinoin alone. This led to the FDA approval of dinutuximab in the post-consolidation setting of neuroblastoma therapy. More recently, when dinutuximab was combined with irinotecan, temozolomide and sargramostim in patients with relapsed/refractory neuroblastoma (ANBL 1221) improved response rates were seen and as a result, this regimen is now considered first line for patients with relapsed or refractory disease in North America. In 2019, the COG Neuroblastoma Committee released a memo removing IL-2 from the standard care for post-consolidation immunotherapy in HR NBL patients. The memo cited the data from two studies by the International Society of Pediatric Oncology Europe Neuroblastoma (SIOPEN) that showed no difference in survival outcomes with the inclusion of IL-2. This led to IL-2 elimination from both SIOPEN and COG protocols. Ongoing trials of post-consolidation immunotherapy were adopted to reflect this update but there are no completed clinical trials reporting data of dinutuximab with sargramostim without chemotherapy or IL-2. The current dose of dinutuximab is 17.5mg/m2/day given over 10 hours for 4 days. It is typically given with pre-medications, opiates and supportive care with careful monitoring of AE's and early intervention as needed. The infusion rate may be slowed down but needs to be completed in 20 hours. Since the published results of dinutuximab efficacy in neuroblastoma and with many years of experience administering it, patients have been successfully completing many courses of therapy in the relapsed setting with good control of AE's. Initially the A0935A protocol directed dinutuximab infusion over 10 hours but was then revised to be given over 5 hours based on tolerability. The ANBL 0032 protocol directed the infusion of dinutuximab over 6 hours. This was suspended temporarily in 2009 for an investigation into the apparent increase in allergy-like AEs related to IL-2; the protocol was amended to extend the dinutuximab infusion duration to 10-20 hours. However since IL-2 removal from standard protocols in 2019, no studies have evaluated the tolerability of infusing dinutuximab in under 10 hours in the HR NBL patient population. Based on clinical experience of infusing this agent at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), the peak time for capillary leak and worsening pain occurs at or after 4 hours of dinutuximab infusing. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that fast infusion may ameliorate some of the symptoms experienced by patients. Although dinutuximab has most recently been given in 10-20 hour infusions based on the ANBL0032 study data that included IL-2, the experience of the early studies of dinutuximab with shorter infusion rates, and the fact that similar anti-GD2 antibodies such as Naxitamab and Hu14.18k322A, are well tolerated in 4 hours or less, support further investigation into decreasing the infusion time of dinutuximab in pediatric patients. Our pilot study has shown that the administration of rapid dinutuximab infusion is feasible. Expansion to a multi-institutional study will provide the safety data needed to support broader implementation of this approach and facilitate its incorporation into future clinical trials, with the ultimate goal of improving the delivery of dinutuximab therapy.