ASTRO 2018: Nelfinavir in Stage III Locally Advanced Lung Cancer
Posted: Friday, November 16, 2018
Ramesh Rengnan, MD, PhD, of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues conducted found that when given concurrently with chemoradiotherapy, the radiosensitizer nelfinavir appeared to be active in terms of local tumor control, overall response, and survival in patients with locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer. The long-term results of this phase I/II trial, which suggest that nelfinavir may enhance the effectiveness of this combination therapy in this patient population, were presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in San Antonio (Abstract 35).
A total of 35 patients who had stage III lung tumors that could not be surgically resected were enrolled and administered 1 of 2 different dosages of nelfinavir (5, low dose; 30, high dose) along with radiotherapy, cisplatin, and etoposide. After a median of 6.8 years, 33 of the 35 patients were assessed.
The majority of treated patients (94%) had a response, and 6% had stable disease. The median progression-free survival was 12 months, the overall survival for all patients was 40 months, and the 5-year survival rate was 37%.
The toxicity of nelfinavir was considered be study investigators to be acceptable, with no dose-limiting toxicities reported in any patients. However, a few patients experienced grade 3 adverse events, such as esophagitis/dysphagia/dehydration, nausea, anorexia, fatigue, diarrhea, or dyspnea.
