Kate Johnson

MONTREAL – Levels of neurofilament light chain (Nfl) may be a biomarker of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neurotoxicity (CIPN), new research suggests.

Investigators found Nfl levels increased in cancer patients following a first infusion of the medication paclitaxel and corresponded to neuropathy severity 6-12 months post-treatment, suggesting the blood protein may provide an early CIPN biomarker.

“Nfl after a single cycle could detect axonal degeneration,” said lead investigator Masarra Joda, a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Sydney in Australia. She added that “quantification of Nfl may provide a clinically useful marker of emerging neurotoxicity in patients vulnerable to CIPN.”

The findings were presented at the Peripheral Nerve Society (PNS) 2024 annual meeting.
 

Common, Burdensome Side Effect

A common side effect of chemotherapy, CIPN manifests as sensory neuropathy and causes degeneration of the peripheral axons. A protein biomarker of axonal degeneration, Nfl has previously been investigated as a way of identifying patients at risk of CIPN.

The goal of the current study was to identify the potential link between Nfl with neurophysiological markers of axon degeneration in patients receiving the neurotoxin chemotherapy paclitaxel.

The study included 93 cancer patients. All were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of treatment. CIPN was assessed using blood samples of Nfl and the Total Neuropathy Score (TNS), the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) neuropathy scale, and patient-reported measures using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire–Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Module (EORTC-CIPN20).

Axonal degeneration was measured with neurophysiological tests including sural nerve compound sensory action potential (CSAP) for the lower limbs, and sensory median nerve CSAP, as well as stimulus threshold testing, for the upper limbs. 

Almost all of study participants (97%) were female. The majority (66%) had breast cancer and 30% had gynecological cancer. Most (73%) were receiving a weekly regimen of paclitaxel, and the remainder were treated with taxanes plus platinum once every 3 weeks. By the end of treatment, 82% of the patients had developed CIPN, which was mild in 44% and moderate/severe in 38%. 

Nfl levels increased significantly from baseline to after the first dose of chemotherapy (P < .001), “highlighting that nerve damage occurs from the very beginning of treatment,” senior investigator Susanna Park, PhD, told this news organization. 

In addition, “patients with higher Nfl levels after a single paclitaxel treatment had greater neuropathy at the end of treatment (higher EORTC scores [P ≤ .026], and higher TNS scores [P ≤ .00]),” added Dr. Park, who is associate professor at the University of Sydney.

“Importantly, we also looked at long-term outcomes beyond the end of chemotherapy, because chronic neuropathy produces a significant burden in cancer survivors,” said Dr. Park. 

“Among a total of 44 patients who completed the 6- to 12-month post-treatment follow-up, NfL levels after a single treatment were linked to severity of nerve damage quantified with neurophysiological tests, and greater Nfl levels at mid-treatment were correlated with worse patient and neurologically graded neuropathy at 6-12 months.”

Dr. Park said the results suggest that NfL may provide a biomarker of long-term axon damage and that Nfl assays “may enable clinicians to evaluate the risk of long-term toxicity early during paclitaxel treatment to hopefully provide clinically significant information to guide better treatment titration.” 

Currently, she said, CIPN is a prominent cause of dose reduction and early chemotherapy cessation. 

“For example, in early breast cancer around 25% of patients experience a dose reduction due to the severity of neuropathy symptoms.” But, she said, “there is no standardized way of identifying which patients are at risk of long-term neuropathy and therefore, may benefit more from dose reduction. In this setting, a biomarker such as Nfl could provide oncologists with more information about the risk of long-term toxicity and take that into account in dose decision-making.” 

For some cancers, she added, there are multiple potential therapy options.

“A biomarker such as NfL could assist in determining risk-benefit profile in terms of switching to alternate therapies. However, further studies will be needed to fully define the utility of NfL as a biomarker of paclitaxel neuropathy.” 
 

Promising Research

Commenting on the research for this news organization, Maryam Lustberg, MD, associate professor, director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, in New Haven, Connecticut, said the study “builds on a body of work previously reported by others showing that neurofilament light chains as detected in the blood can be associated with early signs of neurotoxic injury.” 

She added that the research “is promising, since existing clinical and patient-reported measures tend to under-detect chemotherapy-induced neuropathy until more permanent injury might have occurred.” 

Dr. Lustberg, who is immediate past president of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, said future studies are needed before Nfl testing can be implemented in routine practice, but that “early detection will allow earlier initiation of supportive care strategies such as physical therapy and exercise, as well as dose modifications, which may be helpful for preventing permanent damage and improving quality of life.” 

The investigators and Dr. Lustberg report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

MONTREAL – Levels of neurofilament light chain (Nfl) may be a biomarker of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neurotoxicity (CIPN), new research suggests.

Investigators found Nfl levels increased in cancer patients following a first infusion of the medication paclitaxel and corresponded to neuropathy severity 6-12 months post-treatment, suggesting the blood protein may provide an early CIPN biomarker.

“Nfl after a single cycle could detect axonal degeneration,” said lead investigator Masarra Joda, a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Sydney in Australia. She added that “quantification of Nfl may provide a clinically useful marker of emerging neurotoxicity in patients vulnerable to CIPN.”

The findings were presented at the Peripheral Nerve Society (PNS) 2024 annual meeting.
 

Common, Burdensome Side Effect

A common side effect of chemotherapy, CIPN manifests as sensory neuropathy and causes degeneration of the peripheral axons. A protein biomarker of axonal degeneration, Nfl has previously been investigated as a way of identifying patients at risk of CIPN.

The goal of the current study was to identify the potential link between Nfl with neurophysiological markers of axon degeneration in patients receiving the neurotoxin chemotherapy paclitaxel.

The study included 93 cancer patients. All were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of treatment. CIPN was assessed using blood samples of Nfl and the Total Neuropathy Score (TNS), the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) neuropathy scale, and patient-reported measures using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire–Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Module (EORTC-CIPN20).

Axonal degeneration was measured with neurophysiological tests including sural nerve compound sensory action potential (CSAP) for the lower limbs, and sensory median nerve CSAP, as well as stimulus threshold testing, for the upper limbs. 

Almost all of study participants (97%) were female. The majority (66%) had breast cancer and 30% had gynecological cancer. Most (73%) were receiving a weekly regimen of paclitaxel, and the remainder were treated with taxanes plus platinum once every 3 weeks. By the end of treatment, 82% of the patients had developed CIPN, which was mild in 44% and moderate/severe in 38%. 

Nfl levels increased significantly from baseline to after the first dose of chemotherapy (P < .001), “highlighting that nerve damage occurs from the very beginning of treatment,” senior investigator Susanna Park, PhD, told this news organization. 

In addition, “patients with higher Nfl levels after a single paclitaxel treatment had greater neuropathy at the end of treatment (higher EORTC scores [P ≤ .026], and higher TNS scores [P ≤ .00]),” added Dr. Park, who is associate professor at the University of Sydney.

“Importantly, we also looked at long-term outcomes beyond the end of chemotherapy, because chronic neuropathy produces a significant burden in cancer survivors,” said Dr. Park. 

“Among a total of 44 patients who completed the 6- to 12-month post-treatment follow-up, NfL levels after a single treatment were linked to severity of nerve damage quantified with neurophysiological tests, and greater Nfl levels at mid-treatment were correlated with worse patient and neurologically graded neuropathy at 6-12 months.”

Dr. Park said the results suggest that NfL may provide a biomarker of long-term axon damage and that Nfl assays “may enable clinicians to evaluate the risk of long-term toxicity early during paclitaxel treatment to hopefully provide clinically significant information to guide better treatment titration.” 

Currently, she said, CIPN is a prominent cause of dose reduction and early chemotherapy cessation. 

“For example, in early breast cancer around 25% of patients experience a dose reduction due to the severity of neuropathy symptoms.” But, she said, “there is no standardized way of identifying which patients are at risk of long-term neuropathy and therefore, may benefit more from dose reduction. In this setting, a biomarker such as Nfl could provide oncologists with more information about the risk of long-term toxicity and take that into account in dose decision-making.” 

For some cancers, she added, there are multiple potential therapy options.

“A biomarker such as NfL could assist in determining risk-benefit profile in terms of switching to alternate therapies. However, further studies will be needed to fully define the utility of NfL as a biomarker of paclitaxel neuropathy.” 
 

Promising Research

Commenting on the research for this news organization, Maryam Lustberg, MD, associate professor, director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, in New Haven, Connecticut, said the study “builds on a body of work previously reported by others showing that neurofilament light chains as detected in the blood can be associated with early signs of neurotoxic injury.” 

She added that the research “is promising, since existing clinical and patient-reported measures tend to under-detect chemotherapy-induced neuropathy until more permanent injury might have occurred.” 

Dr. Lustberg, who is immediate past president of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, said future studies are needed before Nfl testing can be implemented in routine practice, but that “early detection will allow earlier initiation of supportive care strategies such as physical therapy and exercise, as well as dose modifications, which may be helpful for preventing permanent damage and improving quality of life.” 

The investigators and Dr. Lustberg report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

MONTREAL – Levels of neurofilament light chain (Nfl) may be a biomarker of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neurotoxicity (CIPN), new research suggests.

Investigators found Nfl levels increased in cancer patients following a first infusion of the medication paclitaxel and corresponded to neuropathy severity 6-12 months post-treatment, suggesting the blood protein may provide an early CIPN biomarker.

“Nfl after a single cycle could detect axonal degeneration,” said lead investigator Masarra Joda, a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Sydney in Australia. She added that “quantification of Nfl may provide a clinically useful marker of emerging neurotoxicity in patients vulnerable to CIPN.”

The findings were presented at the Peripheral Nerve Society (PNS) 2024 annual meeting.
 

Common, Burdensome Side Effect

A common side effect of chemotherapy, CIPN manifests as sensory neuropathy and causes degeneration of the peripheral axons. A protein biomarker of axonal degeneration, Nfl has previously been investigated as a way of identifying patients at risk of CIPN.

The goal of the current study was to identify the potential link between Nfl with neurophysiological markers of axon degeneration in patients receiving the neurotoxin chemotherapy paclitaxel.

The study included 93 cancer patients. All were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of treatment. CIPN was assessed using blood samples of Nfl and the Total Neuropathy Score (TNS), the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) neuropathy scale, and patient-reported measures using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire–Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Module (EORTC-CIPN20).

Axonal degeneration was measured with neurophysiological tests including sural nerve compound sensory action potential (CSAP) for the lower limbs, and sensory median nerve CSAP, as well as stimulus threshold testing, for the upper limbs. 

Almost all of study participants (97%) were female. The majority (66%) had breast cancer and 30% had gynecological cancer. Most (73%) were receiving a weekly regimen of paclitaxel, and the remainder were treated with taxanes plus platinum once every 3 weeks. By the end of treatment, 82% of the patients had developed CIPN, which was mild in 44% and moderate/severe in 38%. 

Nfl levels increased significantly from baseline to after the first dose of chemotherapy (P < .001), “highlighting that nerve damage occurs from the very beginning of treatment,” senior investigator Susanna Park, PhD, told this news organization. 

In addition, “patients with higher Nfl levels after a single paclitaxel treatment had greater neuropathy at the end of treatment (higher EORTC scores [P ≤ .026], and higher TNS scores [P ≤ .00]),” added Dr. Park, who is associate professor at the University of Sydney.

“Importantly, we also looked at long-term outcomes beyond the end of chemotherapy, because chronic neuropathy produces a significant burden in cancer survivors,” said Dr. Park. 

“Among a total of 44 patients who completed the 6- to 12-month post-treatment follow-up, NfL levels after a single treatment were linked to severity of nerve damage quantified with neurophysiological tests, and greater Nfl levels at mid-treatment were correlated with worse patient and neurologically graded neuropathy at 6-12 months.”

Dr. Park said the results suggest that NfL may provide a biomarker of long-term axon damage and that Nfl assays “may enable clinicians to evaluate the risk of long-term toxicity early during paclitaxel treatment to hopefully provide clinically significant information to guide better treatment titration.” 

Currently, she said, CIPN is a prominent cause of dose reduction and early chemotherapy cessation. 

“For example, in early breast cancer around 25% of patients experience a dose reduction due to the severity of neuropathy symptoms.” But, she said, “there is no standardized way of identifying which patients are at risk of long-term neuropathy and therefore, may benefit more from dose reduction. In this setting, a biomarker such as Nfl could provide oncologists with more information about the risk of long-term toxicity and take that into account in dose decision-making.” 

For some cancers, she added, there are multiple potential therapy options.

“A biomarker such as NfL could assist in determining risk-benefit profile in terms of switching to alternate therapies. However, further studies will be needed to fully define the utility of NfL as a biomarker of paclitaxel neuropathy.” 
 

Promising Research

Commenting on the research for this news organization, Maryam Lustberg, MD, associate professor, director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, in New Haven, Connecticut, said the study “builds on a body of work previously reported by others showing that neurofilament light chains as detected in the blood can be associated with early signs of neurotoxic injury.” 

She added that the research “is promising, since existing clinical and patient-reported measures tend to under-detect chemotherapy-induced neuropathy until more permanent injury might have occurred.” 

Dr. Lustberg, who is immediate past president of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, said future studies are needed before Nfl testing can be implemented in routine practice, but that “early detection will allow earlier initiation of supportive care strategies such as physical therapy and exercise, as well as dose modifications, which may be helpful for preventing permanent damage and improving quality of life.” 

The investigators and Dr. Lustberg report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The experimental drug inavolisib showed sustained benefit combined with standard treatment in advanced, PIK3CA-mutated, hormone receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative (HR+/HER2-) locally advanced metastatic breast cancer (LA/mBC), the INAVO120 trial.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for inavolisib in combination with palbociclib and fulvestrant based on initial results of the study presented at a December 2023 meeting. The phase 3 results showed the inavolisib-based regimen more than doubled progression-free survival (PFS) compared with the two other drugs alone as first-line treatment, researchers reported.

The expanded analysis of the trial, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, looked at additional endpoints, including PFS2 (defined as time from randomization to end of next-line treatment), time to first chemotherapy, key adverse events (AEs) and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

“Triple combination of inavolisib, a novel PI3K inhibitor, with palbociclib and fulvestrant, resulted in significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PFS (15.0 vs 7.3 months, hazard ratio [HR] 0.43, P less than .0001),” lead investigator Dejan Juric, MD, reported at the meeting, referring to the initial results.

In additional endpoints, the inavolisib-based triplet also “sustained benefit beyond disease progression, delay in chemotherapy initiation, a manageable safety profile, prolonged time to deterioration in pain severity, and maintained quality of life, supporting the overall conclusion that this triple combination is a promising new treatment option for patients with PIK3CA-mutated HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer,” said the oncologist, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
 

Methods and Results

The trial enrolled 325 patients whose disease had progressed during or within 12 months of adjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) with an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen and who had not received prior systemic therapy for recurrent LA/mBC. Patients were enrolled from December 2019 to September 2023 and randomized to either the triplet combination of inavolisib with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 161) or the doublet therapy of placebo with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 164) until discontinuation due to progressive disease or toxicity.

At the analysis cutoff date at the end of September, 57.8% of patients in the experimental triple therapy arm and 70.1% in the doublet arm had discontinued treatment. In addition, “7.5% versus 11.6% of patients died without subsequent therapy,” said Dr. Juric, and 40.4% of those in the triplet arm, and 50% in the doublet arm received subsequent therapy.

In the expanded analysis, at a median follow-up of 21.3 months, the triplet combination was associated with a PFS2 benefit of 8.9 months over the doublet – meaning patients had 24 months versus 15.1 months from randomization to end of next-line treatment (HR = 0.54). There was a similar benefit in time to first chemotherapy.

Hyperglycemia, diarrhea, rash, and mucosal effects are a known toxicity of PI3K inhibition and were experienced more frequently in the inavolisib arm compared with the placebo arm: (59% vs 9%; 48% vs 16%; 25% vs 17%; and 51% vs 27% respectively). However, “in the vast majority of patients these AEs were experienced in a grade 1 or grade 2 level,” and had resolved by the cutoff date, said Dr. Juric.

There was a 6.2% rate of inavolisib discontinuation due to AEs, but most AEs could be managed with “common approaches” such as metformin for hyperglycemia, loperamide for diarrhea, topical hydrocortisone for rash, and steroid mouthwash for stomatitis/mucosal inflammation, he added.

Patients in the triple treatment arm experienced a longer interval before pain worsened, a median of 30.9 versus 18.1 months, and patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life measures showed no decrease with the addition of inavolisib, Dr. Juric reported.
 

Rationale for Using PFS2 as Endpoint

The PFS2 endpoint has emerged with studies of targeted cancer therapies, Kevin Kalinsky, MD, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, in Atlanta, said in an interview.

“Presenting PFS2 is not a new thing — we’ve been doing this in other breast cancer studies (of CDK4/6 inhibitors),” said Dr. Kalinsky, a coauthor of the study. “The concern is that you give a drug, and then, after that, things grow so rapidly that then you’re actually not benefiting the patient.

“If you’re giving a targeted agent in the first-line, then the biology changes after that first-line, are you really even making a difference? Or is the drug so toxic that they’re not able to tolerate a next line of treatment?” Dr. Kalinsky continued. “So that’s really the intent of PFS2. The PFS2 included the next line of treatment, so it’s really a first, and second-line representation of treatment. The study presented at ASCO was really about toxicity.”

The study was funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Dr. Juric disclosed having stock and other ownership interests in PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; consulting or advisory roles with AstraZeneca, Eisai, Genentech, Lilly, MapKure, Novartis, Pfizer, PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; and research funding from Amgen, Arvinas, AstraZeneca, Blueprint Medicines, Eisai, Genentech, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, InventisBio, Novartis, Pfizer, Ribon Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda.

The experimental drug inavolisib showed sustained benefit combined with standard treatment in advanced, PIK3CA-mutated, hormone receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative (HR+/HER2-) locally advanced metastatic breast cancer (LA/mBC), the INAVO120 trial.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for inavolisib in combination with palbociclib and fulvestrant based on initial results of the study presented at a December 2023 meeting. The phase 3 results showed the inavolisib-based regimen more than doubled progression-free survival (PFS) compared with the two other drugs alone as first-line treatment, researchers reported.

The expanded analysis of the trial, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, looked at additional endpoints, including PFS2 (defined as time from randomization to end of next-line treatment), time to first chemotherapy, key adverse events (AEs) and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

“Triple combination of inavolisib, a novel PI3K inhibitor, with palbociclib and fulvestrant, resulted in significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PFS (15.0 vs 7.3 months, hazard ratio [HR] 0.43, P less than .0001),” lead investigator Dejan Juric, MD, reported at the meeting, referring to the initial results.

In additional endpoints, the inavolisib-based triplet also “sustained benefit beyond disease progression, delay in chemotherapy initiation, a manageable safety profile, prolonged time to deterioration in pain severity, and maintained quality of life, supporting the overall conclusion that this triple combination is a promising new treatment option for patients with PIK3CA-mutated HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer,” said the oncologist, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
 

Methods and Results

The trial enrolled 325 patients whose disease had progressed during or within 12 months of adjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) with an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen and who had not received prior systemic therapy for recurrent LA/mBC. Patients were enrolled from December 2019 to September 2023 and randomized to either the triplet combination of inavolisib with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 161) or the doublet therapy of placebo with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 164) until discontinuation due to progressive disease or toxicity.

At the analysis cutoff date at the end of September, 57.8% of patients in the experimental triple therapy arm and 70.1% in the doublet arm had discontinued treatment. In addition, “7.5% versus 11.6% of patients died without subsequent therapy,” said Dr. Juric, and 40.4% of those in the triplet arm, and 50% in the doublet arm received subsequent therapy.

In the expanded analysis, at a median follow-up of 21.3 months, the triplet combination was associated with a PFS2 benefit of 8.9 months over the doublet – meaning patients had 24 months versus 15.1 months from randomization to end of next-line treatment (HR = 0.54). There was a similar benefit in time to first chemotherapy.

Hyperglycemia, diarrhea, rash, and mucosal effects are a known toxicity of PI3K inhibition and were experienced more frequently in the inavolisib arm compared with the placebo arm: (59% vs 9%; 48% vs 16%; 25% vs 17%; and 51% vs 27% respectively). However, “in the vast majority of patients these AEs were experienced in a grade 1 or grade 2 level,” and had resolved by the cutoff date, said Dr. Juric.

There was a 6.2% rate of inavolisib discontinuation due to AEs, but most AEs could be managed with “common approaches” such as metformin for hyperglycemia, loperamide for diarrhea, topical hydrocortisone for rash, and steroid mouthwash for stomatitis/mucosal inflammation, he added.

Patients in the triple treatment arm experienced a longer interval before pain worsened, a median of 30.9 versus 18.1 months, and patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life measures showed no decrease with the addition of inavolisib, Dr. Juric reported.
 

Rationale for Using PFS2 as Endpoint

The PFS2 endpoint has emerged with studies of targeted cancer therapies, Kevin Kalinsky, MD, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, in Atlanta, said in an interview.

“Presenting PFS2 is not a new thing — we’ve been doing this in other breast cancer studies (of CDK4/6 inhibitors),” said Dr. Kalinsky, a coauthor of the study. “The concern is that you give a drug, and then, after that, things grow so rapidly that then you’re actually not benefiting the patient.

“If you’re giving a targeted agent in the first-line, then the biology changes after that first-line, are you really even making a difference? Or is the drug so toxic that they’re not able to tolerate a next line of treatment?” Dr. Kalinsky continued. “So that’s really the intent of PFS2. The PFS2 included the next line of treatment, so it’s really a first, and second-line representation of treatment. The study presented at ASCO was really about toxicity.”

The study was funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Dr. Juric disclosed having stock and other ownership interests in PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; consulting or advisory roles with AstraZeneca, Eisai, Genentech, Lilly, MapKure, Novartis, Pfizer, PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; and research funding from Amgen, Arvinas, AstraZeneca, Blueprint Medicines, Eisai, Genentech, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, InventisBio, Novartis, Pfizer, Ribon Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda.

The experimental drug inavolisib showed sustained benefit combined with standard treatment in advanced, PIK3CA-mutated, hormone receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative (HR+/HER2-) locally advanced metastatic breast cancer (LA/mBC), the INAVO120 trial.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for inavolisib in combination with palbociclib and fulvestrant based on initial results of the study presented at a December 2023 meeting. The phase 3 results showed the inavolisib-based regimen more than doubled progression-free survival (PFS) compared with the two other drugs alone as first-line treatment, researchers reported.

The expanded analysis of the trial, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, looked at additional endpoints, including PFS2 (defined as time from randomization to end of next-line treatment), time to first chemotherapy, key adverse events (AEs) and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

“Triple combination of inavolisib, a novel PI3K inhibitor, with palbociclib and fulvestrant, resulted in significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PFS (15.0 vs 7.3 months, hazard ratio [HR] 0.43, P less than .0001),” lead investigator Dejan Juric, MD, reported at the meeting, referring to the initial results.

In additional endpoints, the inavolisib-based triplet also “sustained benefit beyond disease progression, delay in chemotherapy initiation, a manageable safety profile, prolonged time to deterioration in pain severity, and maintained quality of life, supporting the overall conclusion that this triple combination is a promising new treatment option for patients with PIK3CA-mutated HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer,” said the oncologist, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
 

Methods and Results

The trial enrolled 325 patients whose disease had progressed during or within 12 months of adjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) with an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen and who had not received prior systemic therapy for recurrent LA/mBC. Patients were enrolled from December 2019 to September 2023 and randomized to either the triplet combination of inavolisib with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 161) or the doublet therapy of placebo with palbociclib and fulvestrant (n = 164) until discontinuation due to progressive disease or toxicity.

At the analysis cutoff date at the end of September, 57.8% of patients in the experimental triple therapy arm and 70.1% in the doublet arm had discontinued treatment. In addition, “7.5% versus 11.6% of patients died without subsequent therapy,” said Dr. Juric, and 40.4% of those in the triplet arm, and 50% in the doublet arm received subsequent therapy.

In the expanded analysis, at a median follow-up of 21.3 months, the triplet combination was associated with a PFS2 benefit of 8.9 months over the doublet – meaning patients had 24 months versus 15.1 months from randomization to end of next-line treatment (HR = 0.54). There was a similar benefit in time to first chemotherapy.

Hyperglycemia, diarrhea, rash, and mucosal effects are a known toxicity of PI3K inhibition and were experienced more frequently in the inavolisib arm compared with the placebo arm: (59% vs 9%; 48% vs 16%; 25% vs 17%; and 51% vs 27% respectively). However, “in the vast majority of patients these AEs were experienced in a grade 1 or grade 2 level,” and had resolved by the cutoff date, said Dr. Juric.

There was a 6.2% rate of inavolisib discontinuation due to AEs, but most AEs could be managed with “common approaches” such as metformin for hyperglycemia, loperamide for diarrhea, topical hydrocortisone for rash, and steroid mouthwash for stomatitis/mucosal inflammation, he added.

Patients in the triple treatment arm experienced a longer interval before pain worsened, a median of 30.9 versus 18.1 months, and patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life measures showed no decrease with the addition of inavolisib, Dr. Juric reported.
 

Rationale for Using PFS2 as Endpoint

The PFS2 endpoint has emerged with studies of targeted cancer therapies, Kevin Kalinsky, MD, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, in Atlanta, said in an interview.

“Presenting PFS2 is not a new thing — we’ve been doing this in other breast cancer studies (of CDK4/6 inhibitors),” said Dr. Kalinsky, a coauthor of the study. “The concern is that you give a drug, and then, after that, things grow so rapidly that then you’re actually not benefiting the patient.

“If you’re giving a targeted agent in the first-line, then the biology changes after that first-line, are you really even making a difference? Or is the drug so toxic that they’re not able to tolerate a next line of treatment?” Dr. Kalinsky continued. “So that’s really the intent of PFS2. The PFS2 included the next line of treatment, so it’s really a first, and second-line representation of treatment. The study presented at ASCO was really about toxicity.”

The study was funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Dr. Juric disclosed having stock and other ownership interests in PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; consulting or advisory roles with AstraZeneca, Eisai, Genentech, Lilly, MapKure, Novartis, Pfizer, PIC Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Vibliome Therapeutics; and research funding from Amgen, Arvinas, AstraZeneca, Blueprint Medicines, Eisai, Genentech, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, InventisBio, Novartis, Pfizer, Ribon Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda.

Adding durvalumab as consolidation treatment following concurrent chemoradiation (cCRT) adds 2 years of life and increases progression-free survival by 24%, compared with placebo, in patients with limited stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC).

These are results of the ADRIATIC trial, the first planned interim analysis of the randomized, phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter study comparing the PD-L 1 antibody durvalumab vs placebo in patients with stage I-III limited stage disease and prior concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

Lead author David R. Spigel, MD, drew several rounds of applause from an enthusiastic audience when he presented this data, at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

“ADRIATIC is the first positive, global phase 3 trial of immunotherapy in limited stage SCLC,” said Lauren Byers, MD, the discussant in the session.

“This groundbreaking trial sets a new standard of care with consolidative durvalumab following concurrent chemoradiation,” continued Dr. Byers, who is professor and thoracic section chief in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Andersen Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
 

ADRIATIC Methods and Results

The new study enrolled 730 patients and randomized them between 1 and 42 days after concurrent chemoradiation to one of three treatments: durvalumab 1500 mg; durvalumab plus tremelimumab 75 mg; or placebo. Treatment was continued for a maximum of 24 months, or until progression or intolerable toxicity.

The study had dual primary endpoints of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for durvalumab vs placebo. The researchers have not yet looked at the results for the secondary endpoints of OS and PFS for patients treated with durvalumab plus tremelimumab vs placebo.

After a median follow-up of 3 years, there was a median OS of 55.9 months in the durvalumab-treated patients, compared with 33.4 months in the placebo arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.73), and, at a median follow-up of 2 years, there was median PFS of 16.6 months vs 9.2 months respectively (HR, 0.76).
 

New Standard of Care for Patients with LS-SCLC

“This study had a very good safety profile,” said Dr. Spigel, who is also a medical oncologist and the chief scientific officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, during his presentation.

“Looking at severe grade 3 or 4 events, these were nearly identical in either arm at 24%. Looking at any-grade immune-mediated AEs, these were 31.2% and 10.2% respectively, and then looking at radiation pneumonitis or pneumonitis, the rates were 38.2% in the durvalumab arm, compared with 30.2% in the placebo arm,” Dr. Spigel said.

Noting that there have been no major advances in the treatment of LS-SCLC for several decades, with most patients experiencing recurrences within 2 years of the cCRT standard of care, Dr. Spigel said “consolidation durvalumab will become the new standard of care for patients with LS-SCLC who have not progressed after cCRT.”

Toby Campbell, MD, a thoracic oncologist, who is professor and chief of Palliative Care at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin, agrees.

“I take care of patients with small cell lung cancer, an aggressive cancer with high symptom burden that devastates patients and families in its wake,” said Dr. Campbell, during an interview. “About 15% of patients luckily present when the cancer is still contained in the chest and is potentially curable. However, with current treatments we give, which include chemotherapy together with radiation, we are ‘successful’ at curing one in four people.

“This study presents a new treatment option which makes a big difference to patients like mine,” Dr. Campbell continued. “For example, at the 2-year time point, nearly half of patients are still cancer-free. These folks have the opportunity to live their lives more fully, unburdened by the symptoms and dread this disease brings. If approved, I think this treatment would immediately be appropriate to use in clinic.

“Further, oncologists are comfortable using this medication as it is already FDA-approved and used similarly in non–small cell lung cancer.”

The study was funded by AstraZeneca. Dr. Spigel discloses consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech/Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Ipsen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Lyell Immunopharma, MedImmune, Monte Rosa Therapeutics, Novartis, Novocure, and Sanofi/Aventis. He has also received research funding from many companies, and travel, accommodations, and other expense reimbursements from AstraZeneca, Genentech, and Novartis.

Dr. Byers discloses honoraria from and consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Beigene, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chugai Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Genentech, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Merck, Dohme, Novartis, and Puma Biotechnology. He also has received research funding from Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Campbell has served as an advisor for Novocure and Genentech.

Adding durvalumab as consolidation treatment following concurrent chemoradiation (cCRT) adds 2 years of life and increases progression-free survival by 24%, compared with placebo, in patients with limited stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC).

These are results of the ADRIATIC trial, the first planned interim analysis of the randomized, phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter study comparing the PD-L 1 antibody durvalumab vs placebo in patients with stage I-III limited stage disease and prior concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

Lead author David R. Spigel, MD, drew several rounds of applause from an enthusiastic audience when he presented this data, at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

“ADRIATIC is the first positive, global phase 3 trial of immunotherapy in limited stage SCLC,” said Lauren Byers, MD, the discussant in the session.

“This groundbreaking trial sets a new standard of care with consolidative durvalumab following concurrent chemoradiation,” continued Dr. Byers, who is professor and thoracic section chief in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Andersen Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
 

ADRIATIC Methods and Results

The new study enrolled 730 patients and randomized them between 1 and 42 days after concurrent chemoradiation to one of three treatments: durvalumab 1500 mg; durvalumab plus tremelimumab 75 mg; or placebo. Treatment was continued for a maximum of 24 months, or until progression or intolerable toxicity.

The study had dual primary endpoints of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for durvalumab vs placebo. The researchers have not yet looked at the results for the secondary endpoints of OS and PFS for patients treated with durvalumab plus tremelimumab vs placebo.

After a median follow-up of 3 years, there was a median OS of 55.9 months in the durvalumab-treated patients, compared with 33.4 months in the placebo arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.73), and, at a median follow-up of 2 years, there was median PFS of 16.6 months vs 9.2 months respectively (HR, 0.76).
 

New Standard of Care for Patients with LS-SCLC

“This study had a very good safety profile,” said Dr. Spigel, who is also a medical oncologist and the chief scientific officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, during his presentation.

“Looking at severe grade 3 or 4 events, these were nearly identical in either arm at 24%. Looking at any-grade immune-mediated AEs, these were 31.2% and 10.2% respectively, and then looking at radiation pneumonitis or pneumonitis, the rates were 38.2% in the durvalumab arm, compared with 30.2% in the placebo arm,” Dr. Spigel said.

Noting that there have been no major advances in the treatment of LS-SCLC for several decades, with most patients experiencing recurrences within 2 years of the cCRT standard of care, Dr. Spigel said “consolidation durvalumab will become the new standard of care for patients with LS-SCLC who have not progressed after cCRT.”

Toby Campbell, MD, a thoracic oncologist, who is professor and chief of Palliative Care at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin, agrees.

“I take care of patients with small cell lung cancer, an aggressive cancer with high symptom burden that devastates patients and families in its wake,” said Dr. Campbell, during an interview. “About 15% of patients luckily present when the cancer is still contained in the chest and is potentially curable. However, with current treatments we give, which include chemotherapy together with radiation, we are ‘successful’ at curing one in four people.

“This study presents a new treatment option which makes a big difference to patients like mine,” Dr. Campbell continued. “For example, at the 2-year time point, nearly half of patients are still cancer-free. These folks have the opportunity to live their lives more fully, unburdened by the symptoms and dread this disease brings. If approved, I think this treatment would immediately be appropriate to use in clinic.

“Further, oncologists are comfortable using this medication as it is already FDA-approved and used similarly in non–small cell lung cancer.”

The study was funded by AstraZeneca. Dr. Spigel discloses consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech/Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Ipsen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Lyell Immunopharma, MedImmune, Monte Rosa Therapeutics, Novartis, Novocure, and Sanofi/Aventis. He has also received research funding from many companies, and travel, accommodations, and other expense reimbursements from AstraZeneca, Genentech, and Novartis.

Dr. Byers discloses honoraria from and consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Beigene, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chugai Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Genentech, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Merck, Dohme, Novartis, and Puma Biotechnology. He also has received research funding from Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Campbell has served as an advisor for Novocure and Genentech.

Adding durvalumab as consolidation treatment following concurrent chemoradiation (cCRT) adds 2 years of life and increases progression-free survival by 24%, compared with placebo, in patients with limited stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC).

These are results of the ADRIATIC trial, the first planned interim analysis of the randomized, phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter study comparing the PD-L 1 antibody durvalumab vs placebo in patients with stage I-III limited stage disease and prior concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

Lead author David R. Spigel, MD, drew several rounds of applause from an enthusiastic audience when he presented this data, at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

“ADRIATIC is the first positive, global phase 3 trial of immunotherapy in limited stage SCLC,” said Lauren Byers, MD, the discussant in the session.

“This groundbreaking trial sets a new standard of care with consolidative durvalumab following concurrent chemoradiation,” continued Dr. Byers, who is professor and thoracic section chief in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Andersen Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
 

ADRIATIC Methods and Results

The new study enrolled 730 patients and randomized them between 1 and 42 days after concurrent chemoradiation to one of three treatments: durvalumab 1500 mg; durvalumab plus tremelimumab 75 mg; or placebo. Treatment was continued for a maximum of 24 months, or until progression or intolerable toxicity.

The study had dual primary endpoints of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for durvalumab vs placebo. The researchers have not yet looked at the results for the secondary endpoints of OS and PFS for patients treated with durvalumab plus tremelimumab vs placebo.

After a median follow-up of 3 years, there was a median OS of 55.9 months in the durvalumab-treated patients, compared with 33.4 months in the placebo arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.73), and, at a median follow-up of 2 years, there was median PFS of 16.6 months vs 9.2 months respectively (HR, 0.76).
 

New Standard of Care for Patients with LS-SCLC

“This study had a very good safety profile,” said Dr. Spigel, who is also a medical oncologist and the chief scientific officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, during his presentation.

“Looking at severe grade 3 or 4 events, these were nearly identical in either arm at 24%. Looking at any-grade immune-mediated AEs, these were 31.2% and 10.2% respectively, and then looking at radiation pneumonitis or pneumonitis, the rates were 38.2% in the durvalumab arm, compared with 30.2% in the placebo arm,” Dr. Spigel said.

Noting that there have been no major advances in the treatment of LS-SCLC for several decades, with most patients experiencing recurrences within 2 years of the cCRT standard of care, Dr. Spigel said “consolidation durvalumab will become the new standard of care for patients with LS-SCLC who have not progressed after cCRT.”

Toby Campbell, MD, a thoracic oncologist, who is professor and chief of Palliative Care at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin, agrees.

“I take care of patients with small cell lung cancer, an aggressive cancer with high symptom burden that devastates patients and families in its wake,” said Dr. Campbell, during an interview. “About 15% of patients luckily present when the cancer is still contained in the chest and is potentially curable. However, with current treatments we give, which include chemotherapy together with radiation, we are ‘successful’ at curing one in four people.

“This study presents a new treatment option which makes a big difference to patients like mine,” Dr. Campbell continued. “For example, at the 2-year time point, nearly half of patients are still cancer-free. These folks have the opportunity to live their lives more fully, unburdened by the symptoms and dread this disease brings. If approved, I think this treatment would immediately be appropriate to use in clinic.

“Further, oncologists are comfortable using this medication as it is already FDA-approved and used similarly in non–small cell lung cancer.”

The study was funded by AstraZeneca. Dr. Spigel discloses consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech/Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Ipsen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Lyell Immunopharma, MedImmune, Monte Rosa Therapeutics, Novartis, Novocure, and Sanofi/Aventis. He has also received research funding from many companies, and travel, accommodations, and other expense reimbursements from AstraZeneca, Genentech, and Novartis.

Dr. Byers discloses honoraria from and consulting or advisory roles with Abbvie, Amgen, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Beigene, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chugai Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Genentech, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Merck, Dohme, Novartis, and Puma Biotechnology. He also has received research funding from Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Campbell has served as an advisor for Novocure and Genentech.

Almost sixty percent of patients with macroscopic stage III melanoma who were randomized to 6 weeks of neoadjuvant immunotherapy needed no further treatment after therapeutic lymph node dissection in the phase 3 NADINA trial.

These results set a new standard of care in this patient population, the study’s lead author, Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Dr. Blank, a hematologist/oncologist from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, called the result “very special,” noting that the trial included an active comparator, rather than a placebo control.

“When we treat these patients with surgery only, the outcome … is very bad: The 5-year relapse-free survival is only 30% and the overall survival is only 50%. Adjuvant therapy improves relapse-free survival but not overall survival ...Thus, there is an urgent need for these patients for novel therapy approaches,” he said during a press conference at the meeting.
 

Study Methods and Results

The study included 423 patients with stage III de novo or recurrent pathologically proven resectable melanoma with at least 1 lymph node metastasis. Patients were randomized to either the experimental neoadjuvant arm (n = 212), or the standard treatment control arm (n = 211), which consisted of therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND) followed by 12 cycles of adjuvant nivolumab (NIVO 480 mg every 4 weeks).

Patients in the experimental arm received two cycles of neoadjuvant ipilimumab (IPI 80 mg every 3 weeks) plus NIVO 240 mg for 3 weeks followed by TLND. Those with a major pathologic response (MPR), defined as less than 10% vital tumor cells in the post-neoadjuvant resection specimen, went straight to follow-up.

Those without an MPR received adjuvant therapy. For patients with BRAF wild-type, this involved 11 cycles of adjuvant NIVO (480 mg every 4 weeks), while BRAF-mutated patients received dabrafenib plus trametinib (150 mg b.i.d./2 mg once a day; 46 weeks).

The study met its primary endpoint — event-free survival (EFS) — at the first interim analysis. After a median follow-up of 9.9 months, the estimated EFS was 83.7% for neoadjuvant immunotherapy versus 57.2% for standard of care, (P less than .0001, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.32).

“When we look into the subgroups, for example BRAF-mutated status or BRAF-wild-type status ... you see for both groups also a highly statistically significant outcome favoring the neoadjuvant therapy with hazard ratios of 0.29 and 0.35,” said Dr. Blank.

In total, 59% of patients in the experimental arm had an MPR needing no further treatment. “This is important, because the patients that achieve a major pathologic response have excellent outcomes, with an EFS of 95%,” said Dr. Blank.

He added that those with a partial response had an EFS of 76%, and among those who had “nonresponse,” the EFS was 57% — the same as that of patients in the control arm.

Toxicities were considered transient and acceptable, with systemic treatment-related grade 3 or 4 events in 29.7% of the neoadjuvant arm and 14.7% of the adjuvant arm.

NADINA is the first neoadjuvant checkpoint inhibitor phase 3 study in melanoma and the first phase 3 trial in oncology testing a checkpoint inhibitor without chemotherapy, noted Dr. Blank.

“At the moment we see only additions of immunotherapy to the chemotherapy neoadjuvant arms, but here you see that we can also treat patients with pure immunotherapy.”
 

Neoadjuvant Therapy Defined as Standard of Care

When considered along with evidence from the phase 2 SWOG 1801 study (N Engl J Med. 2023;388:813-8), “NADINA defines neoadjuvant therapy as the new standard of care for macroscopic stage III melanoma “which means that all trials currently ongoing need to be amended from adjuvant comparators to neoadjuvant comparators,” he said.

Dr. Blank called the trial a “new template for other malignancies implementing a neoadjuvant immunotherapy regimen followed by a response-driven adjuvant therapy.

“I think we see at the moment only sandwich designs, and this is more sales driven than patient driven, because what we have seen is that if a patient achieves a really deep response, the patient doesn’t need an adjuvant part,” he said.

Commenting during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, said the result “confirms and shows for the first time in a phase 3 study that giving immunotherapy before surgery results in superior outcomes to giving immunotherapy only after surgery.”

Dr. Lowe, associate professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, added that the study “also confirms that giving two immunotherapy drugs before surgery results in excellent responses.”

However, he cautioned that “we cannot make comparisons to trials in which patients only got one immunotherapy. But this study confirms that consistency that patients who receive ipilimumab and nivolumab have superior responses compared to single-agent immunotherapy.”

He noted that all of the patients in the new study had all of their lymph nodes removed and called for doing that to remain the standard of care in terms of surgical approach.

“With short follow-up, it is too early to tell if some patients may have benefited from that adjuvant therapy. However, NADINA confirms that immunotherapy should be given to all patients with advanced melanoma before surgery, when possible, and establishes dual therapy with nivolumab and ipilimumab, as the standard of care in the appropriate patient,” Dr. Lowe said.
 

EFS Improvement Exceeds Expectations

In an interview, Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, a medical oncologist and professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, agreed with Dr. Lowe’s assessment of the findings.

“For years we have been doing neoadjuvant immunotherapy trials, all with favorable results, but all relatively small, with data that was intriguing, but not necessarily definitive,” she said. “I see the data from the NADINA trial as being definitive and true evidence of the many advantages of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for clinical stage 3 melanoma ... This work builds on the data from the SWOG 1801 trial but also exceeds expectations with the 68% improvement in EFS appreciated with the dual combination immunotherapy regimen compared to adjuvant nivolumab.”

Additionally, the approximately 30% grade 3 or higher immune-mediated toxicity is reasonable and in keeping with known data, and this trial demonstrates clearly that neoadjuvant immunotherapy does not increase the rate of surgical complications, she said.

Dr. Amaria also considered that 59% of patients who achieved a major pathologic response were observed in the neoadjuvant setting to be a key finding.

This indicates thats “over half the patients could be spared additional immunotherapy and risk of further immune-mediated toxicities by having only two doses of neoadjuvant immunotherapy, she said.

The results “demonstrate the superiority of a neoadjuvant combination immunotherapy approach for patients with clinical stage III melanoma,” she added.

The study was funded by Bristol Myers-Squibb and the Australian government.

Dr. Blank disclosed ties with Immagene, Signature Oncology, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GenMab, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, MSD Oncology, Novartis, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Roche/Genentech, Third Rock Ventures, 4SC, NanoString Technologies, WO 2021/177822 A1, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. No other experts reported any relevant disclosures.

Almost sixty percent of patients with macroscopic stage III melanoma who were randomized to 6 weeks of neoadjuvant immunotherapy needed no further treatment after therapeutic lymph node dissection in the phase 3 NADINA trial.

These results set a new standard of care in this patient population, the study’s lead author, Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Dr. Blank, a hematologist/oncologist from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, called the result “very special,” noting that the trial included an active comparator, rather than a placebo control.

“When we treat these patients with surgery only, the outcome … is very bad: The 5-year relapse-free survival is only 30% and the overall survival is only 50%. Adjuvant therapy improves relapse-free survival but not overall survival ...Thus, there is an urgent need for these patients for novel therapy approaches,” he said during a press conference at the meeting.
 

Study Methods and Results

The study included 423 patients with stage III de novo or recurrent pathologically proven resectable melanoma with at least 1 lymph node metastasis. Patients were randomized to either the experimental neoadjuvant arm (n = 212), or the standard treatment control arm (n = 211), which consisted of therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND) followed by 12 cycles of adjuvant nivolumab (NIVO 480 mg every 4 weeks).

Patients in the experimental arm received two cycles of neoadjuvant ipilimumab (IPI 80 mg every 3 weeks) plus NIVO 240 mg for 3 weeks followed by TLND. Those with a major pathologic response (MPR), defined as less than 10% vital tumor cells in the post-neoadjuvant resection specimen, went straight to follow-up.

Those without an MPR received adjuvant therapy. For patients with BRAF wild-type, this involved 11 cycles of adjuvant NIVO (480 mg every 4 weeks), while BRAF-mutated patients received dabrafenib plus trametinib (150 mg b.i.d./2 mg once a day; 46 weeks).

The study met its primary endpoint — event-free survival (EFS) — at the first interim analysis. After a median follow-up of 9.9 months, the estimated EFS was 83.7% for neoadjuvant immunotherapy versus 57.2% for standard of care, (P less than .0001, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.32).

“When we look into the subgroups, for example BRAF-mutated status or BRAF-wild-type status ... you see for both groups also a highly statistically significant outcome favoring the neoadjuvant therapy with hazard ratios of 0.29 and 0.35,” said Dr. Blank.

In total, 59% of patients in the experimental arm had an MPR needing no further treatment. “This is important, because the patients that achieve a major pathologic response have excellent outcomes, with an EFS of 95%,” said Dr. Blank.

He added that those with a partial response had an EFS of 76%, and among those who had “nonresponse,” the EFS was 57% — the same as that of patients in the control arm.

Toxicities were considered transient and acceptable, with systemic treatment-related grade 3 or 4 events in 29.7% of the neoadjuvant arm and 14.7% of the adjuvant arm.

NADINA is the first neoadjuvant checkpoint inhibitor phase 3 study in melanoma and the first phase 3 trial in oncology testing a checkpoint inhibitor without chemotherapy, noted Dr. Blank.

“At the moment we see only additions of immunotherapy to the chemotherapy neoadjuvant arms, but here you see that we can also treat patients with pure immunotherapy.”
 

Neoadjuvant Therapy Defined as Standard of Care

When considered along with evidence from the phase 2 SWOG 1801 study (N Engl J Med. 2023;388:813-8), “NADINA defines neoadjuvant therapy as the new standard of care for macroscopic stage III melanoma “which means that all trials currently ongoing need to be amended from adjuvant comparators to neoadjuvant comparators,” he said.

Dr. Blank called the trial a “new template for other malignancies implementing a neoadjuvant immunotherapy regimen followed by a response-driven adjuvant therapy.

“I think we see at the moment only sandwich designs, and this is more sales driven than patient driven, because what we have seen is that if a patient achieves a really deep response, the patient doesn’t need an adjuvant part,” he said.

Commenting during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, said the result “confirms and shows for the first time in a phase 3 study that giving immunotherapy before surgery results in superior outcomes to giving immunotherapy only after surgery.”

Dr. Lowe, associate professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, added that the study “also confirms that giving two immunotherapy drugs before surgery results in excellent responses.”

However, he cautioned that “we cannot make comparisons to trials in which patients only got one immunotherapy. But this study confirms that consistency that patients who receive ipilimumab and nivolumab have superior responses compared to single-agent immunotherapy.”

He noted that all of the patients in the new study had all of their lymph nodes removed and called for doing that to remain the standard of care in terms of surgical approach.

“With short follow-up, it is too early to tell if some patients may have benefited from that adjuvant therapy. However, NADINA confirms that immunotherapy should be given to all patients with advanced melanoma before surgery, when possible, and establishes dual therapy with nivolumab and ipilimumab, as the standard of care in the appropriate patient,” Dr. Lowe said.
 

EFS Improvement Exceeds Expectations

In an interview, Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, a medical oncologist and professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, agreed with Dr. Lowe’s assessment of the findings.

“For years we have been doing neoadjuvant immunotherapy trials, all with favorable results, but all relatively small, with data that was intriguing, but not necessarily definitive,” she said. “I see the data from the NADINA trial as being definitive and true evidence of the many advantages of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for clinical stage 3 melanoma ... This work builds on the data from the SWOG 1801 trial but also exceeds expectations with the 68% improvement in EFS appreciated with the dual combination immunotherapy regimen compared to adjuvant nivolumab.”

Additionally, the approximately 30% grade 3 or higher immune-mediated toxicity is reasonable and in keeping with known data, and this trial demonstrates clearly that neoadjuvant immunotherapy does not increase the rate of surgical complications, she said.

Dr. Amaria also considered that 59% of patients who achieved a major pathologic response were observed in the neoadjuvant setting to be a key finding.

This indicates thats “over half the patients could be spared additional immunotherapy and risk of further immune-mediated toxicities by having only two doses of neoadjuvant immunotherapy, she said.

The results “demonstrate the superiority of a neoadjuvant combination immunotherapy approach for patients with clinical stage III melanoma,” she added.

The study was funded by Bristol Myers-Squibb and the Australian government.

Dr. Blank disclosed ties with Immagene, Signature Oncology, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GenMab, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, MSD Oncology, Novartis, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Roche/Genentech, Third Rock Ventures, 4SC, NanoString Technologies, WO 2021/177822 A1, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. No other experts reported any relevant disclosures.

Almost sixty percent of patients with macroscopic stage III melanoma who were randomized to 6 weeks of neoadjuvant immunotherapy needed no further treatment after therapeutic lymph node dissection in the phase 3 NADINA trial.

These results set a new standard of care in this patient population, the study’s lead author, Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Dr. Blank, a hematologist/oncologist from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, called the result “very special,” noting that the trial included an active comparator, rather than a placebo control.

“When we treat these patients with surgery only, the outcome … is very bad: The 5-year relapse-free survival is only 30% and the overall survival is only 50%. Adjuvant therapy improves relapse-free survival but not overall survival ...Thus, there is an urgent need for these patients for novel therapy approaches,” he said during a press conference at the meeting.
 

Study Methods and Results

The study included 423 patients with stage III de novo or recurrent pathologically proven resectable melanoma with at least 1 lymph node metastasis. Patients were randomized to either the experimental neoadjuvant arm (n = 212), or the standard treatment control arm (n = 211), which consisted of therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND) followed by 12 cycles of adjuvant nivolumab (NIVO 480 mg every 4 weeks).

Patients in the experimental arm received two cycles of neoadjuvant ipilimumab (IPI 80 mg every 3 weeks) plus NIVO 240 mg for 3 weeks followed by TLND. Those with a major pathologic response (MPR), defined as less than 10% vital tumor cells in the post-neoadjuvant resection specimen, went straight to follow-up.

Those without an MPR received adjuvant therapy. For patients with BRAF wild-type, this involved 11 cycles of adjuvant NIVO (480 mg every 4 weeks), while BRAF-mutated patients received dabrafenib plus trametinib (150 mg b.i.d./2 mg once a day; 46 weeks).

The study met its primary endpoint — event-free survival (EFS) — at the first interim analysis. After a median follow-up of 9.9 months, the estimated EFS was 83.7% for neoadjuvant immunotherapy versus 57.2% for standard of care, (P less than .0001, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.32).

“When we look into the subgroups, for example BRAF-mutated status or BRAF-wild-type status ... you see for both groups also a highly statistically significant outcome favoring the neoadjuvant therapy with hazard ratios of 0.29 and 0.35,” said Dr. Blank.

In total, 59% of patients in the experimental arm had an MPR needing no further treatment. “This is important, because the patients that achieve a major pathologic response have excellent outcomes, with an EFS of 95%,” said Dr. Blank.

He added that those with a partial response had an EFS of 76%, and among those who had “nonresponse,” the EFS was 57% — the same as that of patients in the control arm.

Toxicities were considered transient and acceptable, with systemic treatment-related grade 3 or 4 events in 29.7% of the neoadjuvant arm and 14.7% of the adjuvant arm.

NADINA is the first neoadjuvant checkpoint inhibitor phase 3 study in melanoma and the first phase 3 trial in oncology testing a checkpoint inhibitor without chemotherapy, noted Dr. Blank.

“At the moment we see only additions of immunotherapy to the chemotherapy neoadjuvant arms, but here you see that we can also treat patients with pure immunotherapy.”
 

Neoadjuvant Therapy Defined as Standard of Care

When considered along with evidence from the phase 2 SWOG 1801 study (N Engl J Med. 2023;388:813-8), “NADINA defines neoadjuvant therapy as the new standard of care for macroscopic stage III melanoma “which means that all trials currently ongoing need to be amended from adjuvant comparators to neoadjuvant comparators,” he said.

Dr. Blank called the trial a “new template for other malignancies implementing a neoadjuvant immunotherapy regimen followed by a response-driven adjuvant therapy.

“I think we see at the moment only sandwich designs, and this is more sales driven than patient driven, because what we have seen is that if a patient achieves a really deep response, the patient doesn’t need an adjuvant part,” he said.

Commenting during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, said the result “confirms and shows for the first time in a phase 3 study that giving immunotherapy before surgery results in superior outcomes to giving immunotherapy only after surgery.”

Dr. Lowe, associate professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, added that the study “also confirms that giving two immunotherapy drugs before surgery results in excellent responses.”

However, he cautioned that “we cannot make comparisons to trials in which patients only got one immunotherapy. But this study confirms that consistency that patients who receive ipilimumab and nivolumab have superior responses compared to single-agent immunotherapy.”

He noted that all of the patients in the new study had all of their lymph nodes removed and called for doing that to remain the standard of care in terms of surgical approach.

“With short follow-up, it is too early to tell if some patients may have benefited from that adjuvant therapy. However, NADINA confirms that immunotherapy should be given to all patients with advanced melanoma before surgery, when possible, and establishes dual therapy with nivolumab and ipilimumab, as the standard of care in the appropriate patient,” Dr. Lowe said.
 

EFS Improvement Exceeds Expectations

In an interview, Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, a medical oncologist and professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, agreed with Dr. Lowe’s assessment of the findings.

“For years we have been doing neoadjuvant immunotherapy trials, all with favorable results, but all relatively small, with data that was intriguing, but not necessarily definitive,” she said. “I see the data from the NADINA trial as being definitive and true evidence of the many advantages of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for clinical stage 3 melanoma ... This work builds on the data from the SWOG 1801 trial but also exceeds expectations with the 68% improvement in EFS appreciated with the dual combination immunotherapy regimen compared to adjuvant nivolumab.”

Additionally, the approximately 30% grade 3 or higher immune-mediated toxicity is reasonable and in keeping with known data, and this trial demonstrates clearly that neoadjuvant immunotherapy does not increase the rate of surgical complications, she said.

Dr. Amaria also considered that 59% of patients who achieved a major pathologic response were observed in the neoadjuvant setting to be a key finding.

This indicates thats “over half the patients could be spared additional immunotherapy and risk of further immune-mediated toxicities by having only two doses of neoadjuvant immunotherapy, she said.

The results “demonstrate the superiority of a neoadjuvant combination immunotherapy approach for patients with clinical stage III melanoma,” she added.

The study was funded by Bristol Myers-Squibb and the Australian government.

Dr. Blank disclosed ties with Immagene, Signature Oncology, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GenMab, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, MSD Oncology, Novartis, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Roche/Genentech, Third Rock Ventures, 4SC, NanoString Technologies, WO 2021/177822 A1, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. No other experts reported any relevant disclosures.

Routine removal of healthy lymph nodes should not be a part of ovarian cancer treatment, according to results of the CARACO trial.

Retroperitoneal pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy (RPPL) in patients undergoing either primary or interval surgery during ovarian cancer treatment for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AEOC) resulted in no benefit and significant harm, the new study found.

“[RPPL] brings only toxicity and it does not increase survival ... because we have a lot of improvement with other treatments than surgery,” lead author Jean-Marc Classe, MD, PhD, said during a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “It’s a surgical de-escalation, because it is not useful.”

Enrollment for the multicenter, phase III CARACO trial stagnated after the LION trial (N Engl J Med . 2019 Feb 28;380[9]:822-832) showed no benefit to doing RPPL in patients undergoing primary surgery for AEOC. Ultimately, the CARACO trial did not enroll the prespecified sample size needed in order for the researchers to show that not doing RPPL was superior. 

Dr. Classe, a surgical oncologist at Nantes Université, in Nantes, France, explained that primary surgery is currently much less common than interval surgery for AEOC , thus it was important to design the CARACO trial to explore the risks and benefits of RPPL in a patient population that included more interval surgery.

CARACO enrolled 379 patients, with median age 64-65 years, and was closed prematurely due to stagnation of enrollment. Patients were randomized to no-RPPL (n = 193) or RPPL (n = 186), with about 75% in each arm receiving interval surgery (neoadjuvant chemotherapy, followed by cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy), and about 25% receiving primary surgery (initial cytoreductive surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy). There was a similar postsurgical rate of no residual disease (85.6% and 88.3% in the no-RPPL and RPPL groups, respectively), and lymph node metastases were diagnosed in 43% of the patients in the RPPL arm, with a median of 3 involved lymph nodes.

After a median follow-up of 9 years both the primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS), and secondary endpoint of overall survival (OS) showed no advantage to RPPL, with a median PFS of 14.8 months in the no-RPPL arm and 18.5 months in the RPPL arm (HR 0.96), and a median OS of 48.9 months and 58.0 months respectively (HR 0.92).

Surgery in the lymphadenectomy arm was 300 minutes versus 240 minutes.

“We observed statistically significant more morbidity in the lymphadenectomy arm with more transfusion (72 vs 57 patients), more re-intervention (15 vs 6 patients), more urinary injury (7 vs zero patients),” said Dr. Classe. Mortality was the same in both arms.

There were 314 events observed in the trial, which was 22 events fewer than the required sample size to show superiority. However, Dr. Classe said, a “worst-case scenario” calculation, assuming that all events would have favored lymphadenectomy, did not change the overall result.

The discussant for the trial, Shitanshu Uppal, MD, assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, agreed that the study investigators adequately addressed this concern with the “counterfactual scenario.” He added that “as utilization of neoadjuvant chemotherapy goes up these results are really helpful in consolidating the results of the prior LION study, that lymph node dissection has no role in interval debulking surgery as well.”

Commenting on the study during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, associate professor in the division of surgical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said the CARACO study investigators’ efforts “underscore the difficulty of designing and accruing surgical clinical trials, especially clinical trials in which patients are offered less surgery.” He said the trial’s findings are consistent with other clinical trials in breast cancer and melanoma “that likewise showed similar outcomes for patients that did not undergo removal of clinically normal appearing lymph nodes.”

He pointed out that all of these studies highlight that the focus should turn to improving medical therapies.

Echoing this sentiment, Julie Gralow, MD, ASCO chief medical officer and executive vice-president, said, “it is very clear that lymph node dissection has significant morbidity ... and it’s very clear that we should not be doing more surgery than is needed ... In advanced ovarian cancer where the majority already have distant disease [focusing] on systemic therapy is probably what will have the most impact.”

Christina Annunziata, MD, PhD, senior vice president, Extramural Discovery Science, at the American Cancer Society, and an expert in ovarian cancer, said the analysis “leaves little doubt that there would be a statistically significant difference between the two arms. The numbers are small, but since this study results were consistent with the similar LION trial, I think that this study will tip the balance further towards omitting the lymphadenectomy in both primary and interval surgeries,” she said in an interview.

Dr. Annunziata added that surgeons are already omitting the dissection based on the LION study.

The study was funded by the French National Institute of Cancer. Dr. Classe disclosed consulting or advisory roles for GlaxoSmithKline, Myriad Genetics, and Roche.

None of the other experts interviewed for this piece declared having any relevant disclosures.

Routine removal of healthy lymph nodes should not be a part of ovarian cancer treatment, according to results of the CARACO trial.

Retroperitoneal pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy (RPPL) in patients undergoing either primary or interval surgery during ovarian cancer treatment for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AEOC) resulted in no benefit and significant harm, the new study found.

“[RPPL] brings only toxicity and it does not increase survival ... because we have a lot of improvement with other treatments than surgery,” lead author Jean-Marc Classe, MD, PhD, said during a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “It’s a surgical de-escalation, because it is not useful.”

Enrollment for the multicenter, phase III CARACO trial stagnated after the LION trial (N Engl J Med . 2019 Feb 28;380[9]:822-832) showed no benefit to doing RPPL in patients undergoing primary surgery for AEOC. Ultimately, the CARACO trial did not enroll the prespecified sample size needed in order for the researchers to show that not doing RPPL was superior. 

Dr. Classe, a surgical oncologist at Nantes Université, in Nantes, France, explained that primary surgery is currently much less common than interval surgery for AEOC , thus it was important to design the CARACO trial to explore the risks and benefits of RPPL in a patient population that included more interval surgery.

CARACO enrolled 379 patients, with median age 64-65 years, and was closed prematurely due to stagnation of enrollment. Patients were randomized to no-RPPL (n = 193) or RPPL (n = 186), with about 75% in each arm receiving interval surgery (neoadjuvant chemotherapy, followed by cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy), and about 25% receiving primary surgery (initial cytoreductive surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy). There was a similar postsurgical rate of no residual disease (85.6% and 88.3% in the no-RPPL and RPPL groups, respectively), and lymph node metastases were diagnosed in 43% of the patients in the RPPL arm, with a median of 3 involved lymph nodes.

After a median follow-up of 9 years both the primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS), and secondary endpoint of overall survival (OS) showed no advantage to RPPL, with a median PFS of 14.8 months in the no-RPPL arm and 18.5 months in the RPPL arm (HR 0.96), and a median OS of 48.9 months and 58.0 months respectively (HR 0.92).

Surgery in the lymphadenectomy arm was 300 minutes versus 240 minutes.

“We observed statistically significant more morbidity in the lymphadenectomy arm with more transfusion (72 vs 57 patients), more re-intervention (15 vs 6 patients), more urinary injury (7 vs zero patients),” said Dr. Classe. Mortality was the same in both arms.

There were 314 events observed in the trial, which was 22 events fewer than the required sample size to show superiority. However, Dr. Classe said, a “worst-case scenario” calculation, assuming that all events would have favored lymphadenectomy, did not change the overall result.

The discussant for the trial, Shitanshu Uppal, MD, assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, agreed that the study investigators adequately addressed this concern with the “counterfactual scenario.” He added that “as utilization of neoadjuvant chemotherapy goes up these results are really helpful in consolidating the results of the prior LION study, that lymph node dissection has no role in interval debulking surgery as well.”

Commenting on the study during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, associate professor in the division of surgical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said the CARACO study investigators’ efforts “underscore the difficulty of designing and accruing surgical clinical trials, especially clinical trials in which patients are offered less surgery.” He said the trial’s findings are consistent with other clinical trials in breast cancer and melanoma “that likewise showed similar outcomes for patients that did not undergo removal of clinically normal appearing lymph nodes.”

He pointed out that all of these studies highlight that the focus should turn to improving medical therapies.

Echoing this sentiment, Julie Gralow, MD, ASCO chief medical officer and executive vice-president, said, “it is very clear that lymph node dissection has significant morbidity ... and it’s very clear that we should not be doing more surgery than is needed ... In advanced ovarian cancer where the majority already have distant disease [focusing] on systemic therapy is probably what will have the most impact.”

Christina Annunziata, MD, PhD, senior vice president, Extramural Discovery Science, at the American Cancer Society, and an expert in ovarian cancer, said the analysis “leaves little doubt that there would be a statistically significant difference between the two arms. The numbers are small, but since this study results were consistent with the similar LION trial, I think that this study will tip the balance further towards omitting the lymphadenectomy in both primary and interval surgeries,” she said in an interview.

Dr. Annunziata added that surgeons are already omitting the dissection based on the LION study.

The study was funded by the French National Institute of Cancer. Dr. Classe disclosed consulting or advisory roles for GlaxoSmithKline, Myriad Genetics, and Roche.

None of the other experts interviewed for this piece declared having any relevant disclosures.

Routine removal of healthy lymph nodes should not be a part of ovarian cancer treatment, according to results of the CARACO trial.

Retroperitoneal pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy (RPPL) in patients undergoing either primary or interval surgery during ovarian cancer treatment for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AEOC) resulted in no benefit and significant harm, the new study found.

“[RPPL] brings only toxicity and it does not increase survival ... because we have a lot of improvement with other treatments than surgery,” lead author Jean-Marc Classe, MD, PhD, said during a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “It’s a surgical de-escalation, because it is not useful.”

Enrollment for the multicenter, phase III CARACO trial stagnated after the LION trial (N Engl J Med . 2019 Feb 28;380[9]:822-832) showed no benefit to doing RPPL in patients undergoing primary surgery for AEOC. Ultimately, the CARACO trial did not enroll the prespecified sample size needed in order for the researchers to show that not doing RPPL was superior. 

Dr. Classe, a surgical oncologist at Nantes Université, in Nantes, France, explained that primary surgery is currently much less common than interval surgery for AEOC , thus it was important to design the CARACO trial to explore the risks and benefits of RPPL in a patient population that included more interval surgery.

CARACO enrolled 379 patients, with median age 64-65 years, and was closed prematurely due to stagnation of enrollment. Patients were randomized to no-RPPL (n = 193) or RPPL (n = 186), with about 75% in each arm receiving interval surgery (neoadjuvant chemotherapy, followed by cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy), and about 25% receiving primary surgery (initial cytoreductive surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy). There was a similar postsurgical rate of no residual disease (85.6% and 88.3% in the no-RPPL and RPPL groups, respectively), and lymph node metastases were diagnosed in 43% of the patients in the RPPL arm, with a median of 3 involved lymph nodes.

After a median follow-up of 9 years both the primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS), and secondary endpoint of overall survival (OS) showed no advantage to RPPL, with a median PFS of 14.8 months in the no-RPPL arm and 18.5 months in the RPPL arm (HR 0.96), and a median OS of 48.9 months and 58.0 months respectively (HR 0.92).

Surgery in the lymphadenectomy arm was 300 minutes versus 240 minutes.

“We observed statistically significant more morbidity in the lymphadenectomy arm with more transfusion (72 vs 57 patients), more re-intervention (15 vs 6 patients), more urinary injury (7 vs zero patients),” said Dr. Classe. Mortality was the same in both arms.

There were 314 events observed in the trial, which was 22 events fewer than the required sample size to show superiority. However, Dr. Classe said, a “worst-case scenario” calculation, assuming that all events would have favored lymphadenectomy, did not change the overall result.

The discussant for the trial, Shitanshu Uppal, MD, assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, agreed that the study investigators adequately addressed this concern with the “counterfactual scenario.” He added that “as utilization of neoadjuvant chemotherapy goes up these results are really helpful in consolidating the results of the prior LION study, that lymph node dissection has no role in interval debulking surgery as well.”

Commenting on the study during the press conference, Michael Lowe, MD, associate professor in the division of surgical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said the CARACO study investigators’ efforts “underscore the difficulty of designing and accruing surgical clinical trials, especially clinical trials in which patients are offered less surgery.” He said the trial’s findings are consistent with other clinical trials in breast cancer and melanoma “that likewise showed similar outcomes for patients that did not undergo removal of clinically normal appearing lymph nodes.”

He pointed out that all of these studies highlight that the focus should turn to improving medical therapies.

Echoing this sentiment, Julie Gralow, MD, ASCO chief medical officer and executive vice-president, said, “it is very clear that lymph node dissection has significant morbidity ... and it’s very clear that we should not be doing more surgery than is needed ... In advanced ovarian cancer where the majority already have distant disease [focusing] on systemic therapy is probably what will have the most impact.”

Christina Annunziata, MD, PhD, senior vice president, Extramural Discovery Science, at the American Cancer Society, and an expert in ovarian cancer, said the analysis “leaves little doubt that there would be a statistically significant difference between the two arms. The numbers are small, but since this study results were consistent with the similar LION trial, I think that this study will tip the balance further towards omitting the lymphadenectomy in both primary and interval surgeries,” she said in an interview.

Dr. Annunziata added that surgeons are already omitting the dissection based on the LION study.

The study was funded by the French National Institute of Cancer. Dr. Classe disclosed consulting or advisory roles for GlaxoSmithKline, Myriad Genetics, and Roche.

None of the other experts interviewed for this piece declared having any relevant disclosures.

Lingering postinfectious cough has been a concern across Canada this winter. Patients with this symptom (defined as a subacute cough, with symptoms lasting between 3 and 8 weeks after the infection) have many questions when they come to the clinic. But there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment for postinfectious cough, according to an overview published on February 12 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal

“It’s something a lot of patients are worried about: That lingering cough after a common cold or flu,” lead author Kevin Liang, MD, of the Department of Family Medicine at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, told this news organization. He added that some studies show that as much as a quarter of adult patients have this complaint.

Dr. Liang and his colleagues emphasized that the diagnosis of postinfectious cough is one of exclusion. It relies on the absence of concerning physical examination findings and other “subacute cough mimics” such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), gastroesophageal reflux disease, or use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.

“Pertussis should be considered in patients with a paroxysmal cough, post-tussive vomiting, and inspiratory whoop,” they added. Coughs that persist beyond 8 weeks warrant further workup such as a pulmonary function test to rule out asthma or COPD. Coughs accompanied by hemoptysis, systemic symptoms, dysphagia, excessive dyspnea, or hoarseness also warrant further workup, they added. And patients with a history of smoking or recurrent pneumonia should be followed more closely.

In the absence of red flags, Dr. Liang and coauthors advised that there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment, “which is associated with harms,” such as medication adverse effects, cost, strain on the medical supply chain, and the fact that pressurized metered-dose inhalers emit powerful greenhouse gases. “A lot of patients come in looking for solutions, but really, all the evidence says the over-the-counter cough syrup just doesn’t work. Or I see clinicians prescribing inhalers or different medication that can cost hundreds of dollars, and their efficacy, at least from the literature, shows that there’s really no improvement. Time and patience are the two keys to solving this,” Dr. Liang told this news organization.

Moreover, there is a distinct absence of guidelines on this topic. The College of Family Physicians of Canada’s recent literature review cited limited data supporting a trial of inhaled corticosteroids, a bronchodilator such as ipratropium-salbutamol, or an intranasal steroid if postnasal drip is suspected. However, “there’s a high risk of bias in the study they cite from using the short-acting bronchodilators, and what it ultimately says is that in most cases, this is self-resolving by around the 20-day mark,” said Dr. Liang. “Our advice is just to err on the side of caution and just provide that information piece to the patient.”
 

‘Significant Nuance’

Imran Satia, MD, assistant professor of respirology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, agreed that “most people who get a viral or bacterial upper or lower respiratory tract infection will get better with time, and there is very little evidence that giving steroids, antibiotics, or cough suppressants is better than waiting it out.” There is “significant nuance” in how to manage this situation, however.

“In some patients with underlying lung disease like asthma or COPD, increasing the frequency of regular inhaled steroids, bronchodilators, oral steroids, antibiotics, and chest imaging with breathing tests may be clinically warranted, and many physicians will do this,” he told this news organization. “In some patients with refractory chronic cough, there is no underlying identifiable disease, despite completing the necessary investigations. Or coughing persists despite trials of treatment for lung diseases, nasal diseases, and stomach reflux disease. This is commonly described as cough hypersensitivity syndrome, for which therapies targeting the neuronal pathways that control coughing are needed.”

Physicians should occasionally consider trying a temporary course of a short-acting bronchodilator inhaler, said Nicholas Vozoris, MD, assistant professor and clinician investigator in respirology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “I think that would be a reasonable first step in a case of really bad postinfectious cough,” he told this news organization. “But in general, drug treatments are not indicated.”
 

Environmental Concerns

Yet some things should raise clinicians’ suspicion of more complex issues.

“A pattern of recurrent colds or bronchitis with protracted coughing afterward raises strong suspicion for asthma, which can present as repeated, prolonged respiratory exacerbations,” he said. “Unless asthma is treated with appropriate inhaler therapy on a regular basis, it will unlikely come under control.”

Dr. Vozoris added that the environmental concerns over the use of metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are minimal compared with the other sources of pollution and the risks for undertreatment. “The authors are overplaying the environmental impact of MDI, in my opinion,” he said. “Physicians already have to deal with the challenging issue of suboptimal patient adherence to inhalers, and I fear that such comments may further drive that up. Furthermore, there is also an environmental footprint with not using inhalers, as patients can then experience suboptimally controlled lung disease as a result — and then present to the ER and get admitted to hospital for exacerbations of disease, where more resources and medications are used up.”

“In addition, in patients who are immunocompromised, protracted coughing after what was thought to be a cold may be associated with an “atypical” respiratory infection, such as tuberculosis, that will require special medical treatment,” Dr. Vozoris concluded.

No funding for the review of postinfectious cough was reported. Dr. Liang and Dr. Vozoris disclosed no competing interests. Dr. Satia reported receiving funding from the ERS Respire 3 Fellowship Award, BMA James Trust Award, North-West Lung Centre Charity (Manchester), NIHR CRF Manchester, Merck MSD, AstraZeneca, and GSK. Dr. Satia also has received consulting fees from Merck MSD, Genentech, and Respiplus; as well as speaker fees from AstraZeneca, GSK, Merck MSD, Sanofi-Regeneron. Satia has served on the following task force committees: Chronic Cough (ERS), Asthma Diagnosis and Management (ERS), NEUROCOUGH (ERS CRC), and the CTS Chronic Cough working group.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Lingering postinfectious cough has been a concern across Canada this winter. Patients with this symptom (defined as a subacute cough, with symptoms lasting between 3 and 8 weeks after the infection) have many questions when they come to the clinic. But there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment for postinfectious cough, according to an overview published on February 12 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal

“It’s something a lot of patients are worried about: That lingering cough after a common cold or flu,” lead author Kevin Liang, MD, of the Department of Family Medicine at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, told this news organization. He added that some studies show that as much as a quarter of adult patients have this complaint.

Dr. Liang and his colleagues emphasized that the diagnosis of postinfectious cough is one of exclusion. It relies on the absence of concerning physical examination findings and other “subacute cough mimics” such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), gastroesophageal reflux disease, or use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.

“Pertussis should be considered in patients with a paroxysmal cough, post-tussive vomiting, and inspiratory whoop,” they added. Coughs that persist beyond 8 weeks warrant further workup such as a pulmonary function test to rule out asthma or COPD. Coughs accompanied by hemoptysis, systemic symptoms, dysphagia, excessive dyspnea, or hoarseness also warrant further workup, they added. And patients with a history of smoking or recurrent pneumonia should be followed more closely.

In the absence of red flags, Dr. Liang and coauthors advised that there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment, “which is associated with harms,” such as medication adverse effects, cost, strain on the medical supply chain, and the fact that pressurized metered-dose inhalers emit powerful greenhouse gases. “A lot of patients come in looking for solutions, but really, all the evidence says the over-the-counter cough syrup just doesn’t work. Or I see clinicians prescribing inhalers or different medication that can cost hundreds of dollars, and their efficacy, at least from the literature, shows that there’s really no improvement. Time and patience are the two keys to solving this,” Dr. Liang told this news organization.

Moreover, there is a distinct absence of guidelines on this topic. The College of Family Physicians of Canada’s recent literature review cited limited data supporting a trial of inhaled corticosteroids, a bronchodilator such as ipratropium-salbutamol, or an intranasal steroid if postnasal drip is suspected. However, “there’s a high risk of bias in the study they cite from using the short-acting bronchodilators, and what it ultimately says is that in most cases, this is self-resolving by around the 20-day mark,” said Dr. Liang. “Our advice is just to err on the side of caution and just provide that information piece to the patient.”
 

‘Significant Nuance’

Imran Satia, MD, assistant professor of respirology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, agreed that “most people who get a viral or bacterial upper or lower respiratory tract infection will get better with time, and there is very little evidence that giving steroids, antibiotics, or cough suppressants is better than waiting it out.” There is “significant nuance” in how to manage this situation, however.

“In some patients with underlying lung disease like asthma or COPD, increasing the frequency of regular inhaled steroids, bronchodilators, oral steroids, antibiotics, and chest imaging with breathing tests may be clinically warranted, and many physicians will do this,” he told this news organization. “In some patients with refractory chronic cough, there is no underlying identifiable disease, despite completing the necessary investigations. Or coughing persists despite trials of treatment for lung diseases, nasal diseases, and stomach reflux disease. This is commonly described as cough hypersensitivity syndrome, for which therapies targeting the neuronal pathways that control coughing are needed.”

Physicians should occasionally consider trying a temporary course of a short-acting bronchodilator inhaler, said Nicholas Vozoris, MD, assistant professor and clinician investigator in respirology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “I think that would be a reasonable first step in a case of really bad postinfectious cough,” he told this news organization. “But in general, drug treatments are not indicated.”
 

Environmental Concerns

Yet some things should raise clinicians’ suspicion of more complex issues.

“A pattern of recurrent colds or bronchitis with protracted coughing afterward raises strong suspicion for asthma, which can present as repeated, prolonged respiratory exacerbations,” he said. “Unless asthma is treated with appropriate inhaler therapy on a regular basis, it will unlikely come under control.”

Dr. Vozoris added that the environmental concerns over the use of metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are minimal compared with the other sources of pollution and the risks for undertreatment. “The authors are overplaying the environmental impact of MDI, in my opinion,” he said. “Physicians already have to deal with the challenging issue of suboptimal patient adherence to inhalers, and I fear that such comments may further drive that up. Furthermore, there is also an environmental footprint with not using inhalers, as patients can then experience suboptimally controlled lung disease as a result — and then present to the ER and get admitted to hospital for exacerbations of disease, where more resources and medications are used up.”

“In addition, in patients who are immunocompromised, protracted coughing after what was thought to be a cold may be associated with an “atypical” respiratory infection, such as tuberculosis, that will require special medical treatment,” Dr. Vozoris concluded.

No funding for the review of postinfectious cough was reported. Dr. Liang and Dr. Vozoris disclosed no competing interests. Dr. Satia reported receiving funding from the ERS Respire 3 Fellowship Award, BMA James Trust Award, North-West Lung Centre Charity (Manchester), NIHR CRF Manchester, Merck MSD, AstraZeneca, and GSK. Dr. Satia also has received consulting fees from Merck MSD, Genentech, and Respiplus; as well as speaker fees from AstraZeneca, GSK, Merck MSD, Sanofi-Regeneron. Satia has served on the following task force committees: Chronic Cough (ERS), Asthma Diagnosis and Management (ERS), NEUROCOUGH (ERS CRC), and the CTS Chronic Cough working group.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Lingering postinfectious cough has been a concern across Canada this winter. Patients with this symptom (defined as a subacute cough, with symptoms lasting between 3 and 8 weeks after the infection) have many questions when they come to the clinic. But there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment for postinfectious cough, according to an overview published on February 12 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal

“It’s something a lot of patients are worried about: That lingering cough after a common cold or flu,” lead author Kevin Liang, MD, of the Department of Family Medicine at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, told this news organization. He added that some studies show that as much as a quarter of adult patients have this complaint.

Dr. Liang and his colleagues emphasized that the diagnosis of postinfectious cough is one of exclusion. It relies on the absence of concerning physical examination findings and other “subacute cough mimics” such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), gastroesophageal reflux disease, or use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.

“Pertussis should be considered in patients with a paroxysmal cough, post-tussive vomiting, and inspiratory whoop,” they added. Coughs that persist beyond 8 weeks warrant further workup such as a pulmonary function test to rule out asthma or COPD. Coughs accompanied by hemoptysis, systemic symptoms, dysphagia, excessive dyspnea, or hoarseness also warrant further workup, they added. And patients with a history of smoking or recurrent pneumonia should be followed more closely.

In the absence of red flags, Dr. Liang and coauthors advised that there is no evidence supporting pharmacologic treatment, “which is associated with harms,” such as medication adverse effects, cost, strain on the medical supply chain, and the fact that pressurized metered-dose inhalers emit powerful greenhouse gases. “A lot of patients come in looking for solutions, but really, all the evidence says the over-the-counter cough syrup just doesn’t work. Or I see clinicians prescribing inhalers or different medication that can cost hundreds of dollars, and their efficacy, at least from the literature, shows that there’s really no improvement. Time and patience are the two keys to solving this,” Dr. Liang told this news organization.

Moreover, there is a distinct absence of guidelines on this topic. The College of Family Physicians of Canada’s recent literature review cited limited data supporting a trial of inhaled corticosteroids, a bronchodilator such as ipratropium-salbutamol, or an intranasal steroid if postnasal drip is suspected. However, “there’s a high risk of bias in the study they cite from using the short-acting bronchodilators, and what it ultimately says is that in most cases, this is self-resolving by around the 20-day mark,” said Dr. Liang. “Our advice is just to err on the side of caution and just provide that information piece to the patient.”
 

‘Significant Nuance’

Imran Satia, MD, assistant professor of respirology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, agreed that “most people who get a viral or bacterial upper or lower respiratory tract infection will get better with time, and there is very little evidence that giving steroids, antibiotics, or cough suppressants is better than waiting it out.” There is “significant nuance” in how to manage this situation, however.

“In some patients with underlying lung disease like asthma or COPD, increasing the frequency of regular inhaled steroids, bronchodilators, oral steroids, antibiotics, and chest imaging with breathing tests may be clinically warranted, and many physicians will do this,” he told this news organization. “In some patients with refractory chronic cough, there is no underlying identifiable disease, despite completing the necessary investigations. Or coughing persists despite trials of treatment for lung diseases, nasal diseases, and stomach reflux disease. This is commonly described as cough hypersensitivity syndrome, for which therapies targeting the neuronal pathways that control coughing are needed.”

Physicians should occasionally consider trying a temporary course of a short-acting bronchodilator inhaler, said Nicholas Vozoris, MD, assistant professor and clinician investigator in respirology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “I think that would be a reasonable first step in a case of really bad postinfectious cough,” he told this news organization. “But in general, drug treatments are not indicated.”
 

Environmental Concerns

Yet some things should raise clinicians’ suspicion of more complex issues.

“A pattern of recurrent colds or bronchitis with protracted coughing afterward raises strong suspicion for asthma, which can present as repeated, prolonged respiratory exacerbations,” he said. “Unless asthma is treated with appropriate inhaler therapy on a regular basis, it will unlikely come under control.”

Dr. Vozoris added that the environmental concerns over the use of metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are minimal compared with the other sources of pollution and the risks for undertreatment. “The authors are overplaying the environmental impact of MDI, in my opinion,” he said. “Physicians already have to deal with the challenging issue of suboptimal patient adherence to inhalers, and I fear that such comments may further drive that up. Furthermore, there is also an environmental footprint with not using inhalers, as patients can then experience suboptimally controlled lung disease as a result — and then present to the ER and get admitted to hospital for exacerbations of disease, where more resources and medications are used up.”

“In addition, in patients who are immunocompromised, protracted coughing after what was thought to be a cold may be associated with an “atypical” respiratory infection, such as tuberculosis, that will require special medical treatment,” Dr. Vozoris concluded.

No funding for the review of postinfectious cough was reported. Dr. Liang and Dr. Vozoris disclosed no competing interests. Dr. Satia reported receiving funding from the ERS Respire 3 Fellowship Award, BMA James Trust Award, North-West Lung Centre Charity (Manchester), NIHR CRF Manchester, Merck MSD, AstraZeneca, and GSK. Dr. Satia also has received consulting fees from Merck MSD, Genentech, and Respiplus; as well as speaker fees from AstraZeneca, GSK, Merck MSD, Sanofi-Regeneron. Satia has served on the following task force committees: Chronic Cough (ERS), Asthma Diagnosis and Management (ERS), NEUROCOUGH (ERS CRC), and the CTS Chronic Cough working group.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

When, in 2022, singer and international celebrity Celine Dion announced what she called her “one-in-a-million diagnosis” of stiff person syndrome, clinicians and medical scientists who specialize in the disorder took a deep breath. Scott D. Newsome, DO, professor of neurology and director of the Johns Hopkins Stiff Person Syndrome Center, Baltimore – a glass-half-full kind of person – saw in Ms. Dion’s worrying announcement a huge opportunity nonetheless: To raise awareness about the rare cluster of disorders known collectively as stiff person spectrum disorders (SPSD).

“Even at the clinician level, if you don’t know the hallmark signs and symptoms, you could possibly misdiagnose it,” Dr. Newsome said in an interview.

Newsome_Scott_MD_web.jpg

But misdiagnosis can go either way; increased awareness of SPSD can have a downside. Thirty years ago, when Marinos C. Dalakas, MD, first began studying SPSD, the diagnosis was frequently missed – “because people were not aware of it,” he said. But now, Dr. Dalakas, professor of neurology and director of the division of neuromuscular diseases in the department of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, both in Philadelphia, said overdiagnosis is also a concern, particularly with increased public awareness.

“Just this last month I saw two patients who told me: ‘I read about it, and I believe I have symptoms of stiff person,’ ” he said.

Celebrity attention might be fueling higher suspicion of SPSD but the trend was already moving in that direction before the recent headlines. These days, most patients in whom SPSD is suspected end up with an alternate diagnosis. In a recent retrospective study that Dr. Dalakas coauthored, of 173 patients who had been referred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., with suspected SPSD,¹ Dr. Dalakas and colleagues determined that only 48 (27.7%) actually had the disorder – meaning that the rest might have been unnecessarily exposed to immunosuppressive SPSD therapies and that treatment for their actual disorder (most often, a functional neurologic disorder or nonneurologic condition) was delayed.

At the root of both underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis of SPSD is the heterogeneity of the condition and a lack of definitive diagnostic markers.

SPSD has been considered an autoimmune disorder for a long time, and observations by Dr. Dalakas and others have shown that as many as 35% of cases co-occur with another autoimmune disease, such as vitiligo, celiac disease, rheumatologic disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and thyroid disease (Grave’s disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis).² A more recent study by his group observed an even higher rate (42%) of comorbid autoimmunity, with autoimmune thyroid disease being most common. However, although most cases of SPDS are characterized by an elevated level of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD)65-IgG, these autoantibodies are not specific to SPSD (low levels are also seen in diabetes, thyroid disease, healthy controls, etc.). Some SPSD patients have less common autoantibodies and a minority has no autoantibodies. Dr. Newsome said seronegative cases and the antibody presence and titers not being associated with disease severity or treatment response are clues that “SPSD does not appear to be a primary antibody-mediated condition and that there must be other immune factors at play.”
 

Autoimmune process drives SPSD

Autoimmunity, even if not detected by serologic studies, is believed to inhibit expression of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors, which, in turn, results in stiffness and spasms. Although what are known as “Dalakas criteria,” proposed in 2009,² describe the “classic” SPSD phenotype, encompassing roughly three-quarters of SPSD patients, there have now been other phenotypes proposed under SPSD, including isolated forms (stiff limb or trunk syndrome) and “nonclassic” phenotypes like SPS-plus (classic features plus brain stem and/or cerebellar involvement),3 overlap syndromes (for example, classic features with refractory epilepsy/limbic encephalitis), and probably the most severe phenotype, progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus.

Early and aggressive therapy with benzodiazepines and other GABA-ergic agonists, as well as immune-based treatments, is considered critical to slowing progression of SPSD. However, the insidious onset of what is often a cluster of vague, nonspecific symptoms is a challenge for clinicians to recognize.

Dalakas_Marinos_PA_web.jpg

“When a patient comes in with muscular spasms, with stiffness in the back, in the legs, and it’s unexplained and it’s not due to spinal cord disease, or multiple sclerosis ... think SPSD,” said Dr. Dalakas. “Check antibodies – that’s the first thing to do.”

Antibody positivity is most helpful at high levels, he added; low titers can be present in autoimmune diabetes and other conditions, as previously mentioned. The real challenge? When a patient is seronegative.
 

Embarking on a diagnostic odyssey

Patients “bounce from one clinician to the next looking for answers,” said Dr. Newsome. “Patients will often start with their general practitioner and be referred to physical therapy, rheumatology, or orthopedics, and other specialists, which could include neurology and/or psychiatry, among others. SPSD is often not considered as a possible diagnosis until the patient develops more concrete symptoms and/or objective signs on exam. Of course, considering this diagnosis starts at knowing that it exists.”

Task-specific phobias and exaggerated acoustic startle or sensory reflex are specific symptoms that can red-flag some SPSD patients, said Dr. Dalakas. “Impaired GABA is also important for fears and anxiety. So, when you have a reduction of GABA you have more phobic neuroses – fear of crossing the street, fear of speaking in public, and they get very tense and they cannot perform.

“If the GABA-ergic pathways are dysfunctional, then there’s a relative hyper-excitability within the nervous system,” said Dr. Newsome. “This can be evaluated with electromyography. “The muscles are unhinged and going crazy: Agonists and antagonists are contracting together, which is abnormal. We will also assess for continuous motor unit potential activity within individual muscles – angry muscles just continuously firing. In our experience, this finding appears to be a pretty specific sign of SPS, especially in the torso.” Importantly, the sudden contraction of muscles along with stiffness can lead to traumatic falls, causing major orthopedic and brain injury.

In early stages of SPSD, a careful history and clinical exam is critical to try to shorten what Dr. Newsome calls the patient’s “diagnostic odyssey.”

“It behooves the clinician to put their hands on the patient. Check their back, their abdomen – try to feel for rigidity, paraspinal muscle spasms, and tightness. These regions of the body often have a ropey feel to them, which is due to chronic muscle spasms and tightness. Most [SPSD] patients will have this present in the thoracolumbar area,” he explained. “Check for hyperlordosis, as this is a hallmark sign on exam in SPSD. Additionally, patients can have rigidity and spasticity in their legs or arms. Also, patients with nonclassical phenotypes can present with a variety of other symptoms and findings on exam, including ataxia, nystagmus, ophthalmoparesis, and dysarthria.”

Lumbar puncture can sometimes reveal signs of inflammation, such as an elevated white blood cell count and oligoclonal bands in spinal fluid.

“The classic teaching was that you can only see such findings in conditions like multiple sclerosis, but that’s not the case,” said Dr. Newsome. “You can see these findings in other autoimmune conditions, including SPSD. Hence, as part of the workup, we will have patients undergo lumbar punctures to assess for these markers of autoimmunity.”

Other mimics of SPSD, including multiple sclerosis, tumors, and spinal stenosis, should be ruled out with MRI of the brain and spine.
 

Treatment options

Because of wide variability in signs and symptoms of the disorder, treatment of SPSD is a highly individualized cocktail of interventions, which might include immunotherapy and GABA-ergic agonists, as well as nonmedication treatments. The response to these agents can be difficult to quantify.

Benzodiazepines (diazepam, clonazepam, baclofen) along with other oral symptomatic treatments are often recommended as first-line therapy because of their ability to enhance GABA.⁴ 

First-line immunotherapy is usually intravenous immunoglobulin, steroids, or plasmapheresis. Second- and third-line agents include rituximab, mycophenolate mofetil, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, and combination immune treatments.

Dr. Newsome and Dr. Dalakas have independently published a step-by-step therapeutic approach to SPSD.^3,5 But in patients with paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome, eradication of their cancer is critical, although, per Dr. Newsome, “this does not always cure SPS and most of these patients still have residual disability.”

But immune-based therapies are only part of what should be a multipronged treatment approach, said Dr. Newsome. He also strongly advocates for non-pharmacological interventions, such as selective physical therapy (stretching, ultrasound, and gait and balance training), heat therapy, aquatherapy, deep-tissue massage or myofascial techniques, osteopathic or chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, and acupressure.³

Because SPSD is considered a progressive disorder for some, a reasonable goal of treatment is to prevent worsening, said Dr. Newsome. This can take time: “We don’t expect the treatments to work overnight. It involves consecutive months and, sometimes, a couple of years of immune treatment before you start to see it impact the person’s life favorably.”

Patients who are not well informed about the long-term goal of treatments might be tempted to abandon the treatments prematurely because they don’t see immediate results, Dr. Newsome added. Encouraging realistic expectations is also important, without dashing hopes.

“I have patients who were marathon runners, and they want to get back to doing marathons. I would love nothing more than for people to get back to their pre-SPSD levels of function. But this may not be a realistic goal. However, this does not mean that quality of life can’t be helped.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Newsome encourages clinicians to reassess regularly, especially because lack of disease biomarkers makes it hard to objectively monitor the impact of therapy.

“It’s always a good rule of thumb, especially in the rare disease space, to step back and ask: ‘Are we on the right treatment path or not?’ If we’re not, then it is important to make sure you have the correct diagnosis. Even when you have a patient who fits the textbook and you, yourself, diagnosed them, it is important to continue to re-evaluate the diagnosis over time, especially if there is consideration of changing treatments. It is also important to make sure there is not something else on top of the stiff person syndrome that is working in parallel to worsen their condition.”
 

Be alert for comorbidity

Undiagnosed comorbid conditions that can complicate SPSD include Parkinson’s disease or myasthenia gravis, to name a couple, which Dr. Newsome has seen more than once. “We’ve seen a few people over the years who have both SPSD and another autoimmune or degenerative neurological condition.”

Diabetes also co-occurs in approximately 30% of people with SPSD, said Dr. Dalakas. “Endocrinologists should also be aware of this connection.”

Paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome is thought to be triggered by cancer, which might not have been diagnosed, making it important to work up patients for malignancy – particularly breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, lymphoma, and thymoma, Dr. Newsome advised.

Although most cases of SPSD are diagnosed in mid-life, the disorder can occur in teenagers and the elderly.

“It’s not the first thing you think of when a 70-year-old patient comes with neck pain, so it’s missed more often, and the prognosis is worse,” Dr. Dalakas warned.
 

What does the future hold?

Like Dr. Newsome, Dr. Dalakas is encouraged when SPSD hits the headlines because, generally, awareness facilitates diagnosis and research. (Both clinicians serve on the medical advisory board of The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation.)

“We are looking for better therapies that target immune factors,” said Dr. Dalakas. “There are several of those that are relevant, so we need to select the best immune marker that we think plays a role in the antibody production,” he said.

“There’s a lot of hope – at least I have a lot of hope for what the future holds with SPSD,” added Dr. Newsome. “More research is needed and it starts with awareness of SPSD.”

Dr. Newsome discloses that he has received consulting fees for serving on scientific advisory boards of Biogen, Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb, EMD Serono, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Horizon Therapeutics, TG Therapeutics; is the study lead principal investigator for a Roche clinical trial; and has received research funding (paid directly to his employing institution) from Biogen, Roche, Lundbeck, Genentech, The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, U.S. Department of Defense, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Dalakas reports nothing relevant to disclose.

References

1. Chia NH et al. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2023;10(7):1083-94. doi: 10.1002/acn3.51791.

2. Dalakas MC.. Curr Treat Options Neurol. 2009;11(2):102-10. doi: 10.1007/s11940-009-0013-9.

3. Newsome SD and Johnson T. J Neuroimmunol. 2022;369:577915. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2022.577915.

4. Ortiz JF et al. Cureus. 2020;12(12):e11995. doi: 10.7759/cureus.11995.

5. Dalakas CD. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm. 2023;10(3):e200109. doi: 10.1212/NXI.0000000000200109.






 

When, in 2022, singer and international celebrity Celine Dion announced what she called her “one-in-a-million diagnosis” of stiff person syndrome, clinicians and medical scientists who specialize in the disorder took a deep breath. Scott D. Newsome, DO, professor of neurology and director of the Johns Hopkins Stiff Person Syndrome Center, Baltimore – a glass-half-full kind of person – saw in Ms. Dion’s worrying announcement a huge opportunity nonetheless: To raise awareness about the rare cluster of disorders known collectively as stiff person spectrum disorders (SPSD).

“Even at the clinician level, if you don’t know the hallmark signs and symptoms, you could possibly misdiagnose it,” Dr. Newsome said in an interview.

Newsome_Scott_MD_web.jpg

But misdiagnosis can go either way; increased awareness of SPSD can have a downside. Thirty years ago, when Marinos C. Dalakas, MD, first began studying SPSD, the diagnosis was frequently missed – “because people were not aware of it,” he said. But now, Dr. Dalakas, professor of neurology and director of the division of neuromuscular diseases in the department of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, both in Philadelphia, said overdiagnosis is also a concern, particularly with increased public awareness.

“Just this last month I saw two patients who told me: ‘I read about it, and I believe I have symptoms of stiff person,’ ” he said.

Celebrity attention might be fueling higher suspicion of SPSD but the trend was already moving in that direction before the recent headlines. These days, most patients in whom SPSD is suspected end up with an alternate diagnosis. In a recent retrospective study that Dr. Dalakas coauthored, of 173 patients who had been referred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., with suspected SPSD,¹ Dr. Dalakas and colleagues determined that only 48 (27.7%) actually had the disorder – meaning that the rest might have been unnecessarily exposed to immunosuppressive SPSD therapies and that treatment for their actual disorder (most often, a functional neurologic disorder or nonneurologic condition) was delayed.

At the root of both underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis of SPSD is the heterogeneity of the condition and a lack of definitive diagnostic markers.

SPSD has been considered an autoimmune disorder for a long time, and observations by Dr. Dalakas and others have shown that as many as 35% of cases co-occur with another autoimmune disease, such as vitiligo, celiac disease, rheumatologic disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and thyroid disease (Grave’s disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis).² A more recent study by his group observed an even higher rate (42%) of comorbid autoimmunity, with autoimmune thyroid disease being most common. However, although most cases of SPDS are characterized by an elevated level of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD)65-IgG, these autoantibodies are not specific to SPSD (low levels are also seen in diabetes, thyroid disease, healthy controls, etc.). Some SPSD patients have less common autoantibodies and a minority has no autoantibodies. Dr. Newsome said seronegative cases and the antibody presence and titers not being associated with disease severity or treatment response are clues that “SPSD does not appear to be a primary antibody-mediated condition and that there must be other immune factors at play.”
 

Autoimmune process drives SPSD

Autoimmunity, even if not detected by serologic studies, is believed to inhibit expression of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors, which, in turn, results in stiffness and spasms. Although what are known as “Dalakas criteria,” proposed in 2009,² describe the “classic” SPSD phenotype, encompassing roughly three-quarters of SPSD patients, there have now been other phenotypes proposed under SPSD, including isolated forms (stiff limb or trunk syndrome) and “nonclassic” phenotypes like SPS-plus (classic features plus brain stem and/or cerebellar involvement),3 overlap syndromes (for example, classic features with refractory epilepsy/limbic encephalitis), and probably the most severe phenotype, progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus.

Early and aggressive therapy with benzodiazepines and other GABA-ergic agonists, as well as immune-based treatments, is considered critical to slowing progression of SPSD. However, the insidious onset of what is often a cluster of vague, nonspecific symptoms is a challenge for clinicians to recognize.

Dalakas_Marinos_PA_web.jpg

“When a patient comes in with muscular spasms, with stiffness in the back, in the legs, and it’s unexplained and it’s not due to spinal cord disease, or multiple sclerosis ... think SPSD,” said Dr. Dalakas. “Check antibodies – that’s the first thing to do.”

Antibody positivity is most helpful at high levels, he added; low titers can be present in autoimmune diabetes and other conditions, as previously mentioned. The real challenge? When a patient is seronegative.
 

Embarking on a diagnostic odyssey

Patients “bounce from one clinician to the next looking for answers,” said Dr. Newsome. “Patients will often start with their general practitioner and be referred to physical therapy, rheumatology, or orthopedics, and other specialists, which could include neurology and/or psychiatry, among others. SPSD is often not considered as a possible diagnosis until the patient develops more concrete symptoms and/or objective signs on exam. Of course, considering this diagnosis starts at knowing that it exists.”

Task-specific phobias and exaggerated acoustic startle or sensory reflex are specific symptoms that can red-flag some SPSD patients, said Dr. Dalakas. “Impaired GABA is also important for fears and anxiety. So, when you have a reduction of GABA you have more phobic neuroses – fear of crossing the street, fear of speaking in public, and they get very tense and they cannot perform.

“If the GABA-ergic pathways are dysfunctional, then there’s a relative hyper-excitability within the nervous system,” said Dr. Newsome. “This can be evaluated with electromyography. “The muscles are unhinged and going crazy: Agonists and antagonists are contracting together, which is abnormal. We will also assess for continuous motor unit potential activity within individual muscles – angry muscles just continuously firing. In our experience, this finding appears to be a pretty specific sign of SPS, especially in the torso.” Importantly, the sudden contraction of muscles along with stiffness can lead to traumatic falls, causing major orthopedic and brain injury.

In early stages of SPSD, a careful history and clinical exam is critical to try to shorten what Dr. Newsome calls the patient’s “diagnostic odyssey.”

“It behooves the clinician to put their hands on the patient. Check their back, their abdomen – try to feel for rigidity, paraspinal muscle spasms, and tightness. These regions of the body often have a ropey feel to them, which is due to chronic muscle spasms and tightness. Most [SPSD] patients will have this present in the thoracolumbar area,” he explained. “Check for hyperlordosis, as this is a hallmark sign on exam in SPSD. Additionally, patients can have rigidity and spasticity in their legs or arms. Also, patients with nonclassical phenotypes can present with a variety of other symptoms and findings on exam, including ataxia, nystagmus, ophthalmoparesis, and dysarthria.”

Lumbar puncture can sometimes reveal signs of inflammation, such as an elevated white blood cell count and oligoclonal bands in spinal fluid.

“The classic teaching was that you can only see such findings in conditions like multiple sclerosis, but that’s not the case,” said Dr. Newsome. “You can see these findings in other autoimmune conditions, including SPSD. Hence, as part of the workup, we will have patients undergo lumbar punctures to assess for these markers of autoimmunity.”

Other mimics of SPSD, including multiple sclerosis, tumors, and spinal stenosis, should be ruled out with MRI of the brain and spine.
 

Treatment options

Because of wide variability in signs and symptoms of the disorder, treatment of SPSD is a highly individualized cocktail of interventions, which might include immunotherapy and GABA-ergic agonists, as well as nonmedication treatments. The response to these agents can be difficult to quantify.

Benzodiazepines (diazepam, clonazepam, baclofen) along with other oral symptomatic treatments are often recommended as first-line therapy because of their ability to enhance GABA.⁴ 

First-line immunotherapy is usually intravenous immunoglobulin, steroids, or plasmapheresis. Second- and third-line agents include rituximab, mycophenolate mofetil, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, and combination immune treatments.

Dr. Newsome and Dr. Dalakas have independently published a step-by-step therapeutic approach to SPSD.^3,5 But in patients with paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome, eradication of their cancer is critical, although, per Dr. Newsome, “this does not always cure SPS and most of these patients still have residual disability.”

But immune-based therapies are only part of what should be a multipronged treatment approach, said Dr. Newsome. He also strongly advocates for non-pharmacological interventions, such as selective physical therapy (stretching, ultrasound, and gait and balance training), heat therapy, aquatherapy, deep-tissue massage or myofascial techniques, osteopathic or chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, and acupressure.³

Because SPSD is considered a progressive disorder for some, a reasonable goal of treatment is to prevent worsening, said Dr. Newsome. This can take time: “We don’t expect the treatments to work overnight. It involves consecutive months and, sometimes, a couple of years of immune treatment before you start to see it impact the person’s life favorably.”

Patients who are not well informed about the long-term goal of treatments might be tempted to abandon the treatments prematurely because they don’t see immediate results, Dr. Newsome added. Encouraging realistic expectations is also important, without dashing hopes.

“I have patients who were marathon runners, and they want to get back to doing marathons. I would love nothing more than for people to get back to their pre-SPSD levels of function. But this may not be a realistic goal. However, this does not mean that quality of life can’t be helped.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Newsome encourages clinicians to reassess regularly, especially because lack of disease biomarkers makes it hard to objectively monitor the impact of therapy.

“It’s always a good rule of thumb, especially in the rare disease space, to step back and ask: ‘Are we on the right treatment path or not?’ If we’re not, then it is important to make sure you have the correct diagnosis. Even when you have a patient who fits the textbook and you, yourself, diagnosed them, it is important to continue to re-evaluate the diagnosis over time, especially if there is consideration of changing treatments. It is also important to make sure there is not something else on top of the stiff person syndrome that is working in parallel to worsen their condition.”
 

Be alert for comorbidity

Undiagnosed comorbid conditions that can complicate SPSD include Parkinson’s disease or myasthenia gravis, to name a couple, which Dr. Newsome has seen more than once. “We’ve seen a few people over the years who have both SPSD and another autoimmune or degenerative neurological condition.”

Diabetes also co-occurs in approximately 30% of people with SPSD, said Dr. Dalakas. “Endocrinologists should also be aware of this connection.”

Paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome is thought to be triggered by cancer, which might not have been diagnosed, making it important to work up patients for malignancy – particularly breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, lymphoma, and thymoma, Dr. Newsome advised.

Although most cases of SPSD are diagnosed in mid-life, the disorder can occur in teenagers and the elderly.

“It’s not the first thing you think of when a 70-year-old patient comes with neck pain, so it’s missed more often, and the prognosis is worse,” Dr. Dalakas warned.
 

What does the future hold?

Like Dr. Newsome, Dr. Dalakas is encouraged when SPSD hits the headlines because, generally, awareness facilitates diagnosis and research. (Both clinicians serve on the medical advisory board of The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation.)

“We are looking for better therapies that target immune factors,” said Dr. Dalakas. “There are several of those that are relevant, so we need to select the best immune marker that we think plays a role in the antibody production,” he said.

“There’s a lot of hope – at least I have a lot of hope for what the future holds with SPSD,” added Dr. Newsome. “More research is needed and it starts with awareness of SPSD.”

Dr. Newsome discloses that he has received consulting fees for serving on scientific advisory boards of Biogen, Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb, EMD Serono, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Horizon Therapeutics, TG Therapeutics; is the study lead principal investigator for a Roche clinical trial; and has received research funding (paid directly to his employing institution) from Biogen, Roche, Lundbeck, Genentech, The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, U.S. Department of Defense, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Dalakas reports nothing relevant to disclose.

References

1. Chia NH et al. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2023;10(7):1083-94. doi: 10.1002/acn3.51791.

2. Dalakas MC.. Curr Treat Options Neurol. 2009;11(2):102-10. doi: 10.1007/s11940-009-0013-9.

3. Newsome SD and Johnson T. J Neuroimmunol. 2022;369:577915. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2022.577915.

4. Ortiz JF et al. Cureus. 2020;12(12):e11995. doi: 10.7759/cureus.11995.

5. Dalakas CD. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm. 2023;10(3):e200109. doi: 10.1212/NXI.0000000000200109.






 

When, in 2022, singer and international celebrity Celine Dion announced what she called her “one-in-a-million diagnosis” of stiff person syndrome, clinicians and medical scientists who specialize in the disorder took a deep breath. Scott D. Newsome, DO, professor of neurology and director of the Johns Hopkins Stiff Person Syndrome Center, Baltimore – a glass-half-full kind of person – saw in Ms. Dion’s worrying announcement a huge opportunity nonetheless: To raise awareness about the rare cluster of disorders known collectively as stiff person spectrum disorders (SPSD).

“Even at the clinician level, if you don’t know the hallmark signs and symptoms, you could possibly misdiagnose it,” Dr. Newsome said in an interview.

Newsome_Scott_MD_web.jpg

But misdiagnosis can go either way; increased awareness of SPSD can have a downside. Thirty years ago, when Marinos C. Dalakas, MD, first began studying SPSD, the diagnosis was frequently missed – “because people were not aware of it,” he said. But now, Dr. Dalakas, professor of neurology and director of the division of neuromuscular diseases in the department of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, both in Philadelphia, said overdiagnosis is also a concern, particularly with increased public awareness.

“Just this last month I saw two patients who told me: ‘I read about it, and I believe I have symptoms of stiff person,’ ” he said.

Celebrity attention might be fueling higher suspicion of SPSD but the trend was already moving in that direction before the recent headlines. These days, most patients in whom SPSD is suspected end up with an alternate diagnosis. In a recent retrospective study that Dr. Dalakas coauthored, of 173 patients who had been referred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., with suspected SPSD,¹ Dr. Dalakas and colleagues determined that only 48 (27.7%) actually had the disorder – meaning that the rest might have been unnecessarily exposed to immunosuppressive SPSD therapies and that treatment for their actual disorder (most often, a functional neurologic disorder or nonneurologic condition) was delayed.

At the root of both underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis of SPSD is the heterogeneity of the condition and a lack of definitive diagnostic markers.

SPSD has been considered an autoimmune disorder for a long time, and observations by Dr. Dalakas and others have shown that as many as 35% of cases co-occur with another autoimmune disease, such as vitiligo, celiac disease, rheumatologic disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and thyroid disease (Grave’s disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis).² A more recent study by his group observed an even higher rate (42%) of comorbid autoimmunity, with autoimmune thyroid disease being most common. However, although most cases of SPDS are characterized by an elevated level of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD)65-IgG, these autoantibodies are not specific to SPSD (low levels are also seen in diabetes, thyroid disease, healthy controls, etc.). Some SPSD patients have less common autoantibodies and a minority has no autoantibodies. Dr. Newsome said seronegative cases and the antibody presence and titers not being associated with disease severity or treatment response are clues that “SPSD does not appear to be a primary antibody-mediated condition and that there must be other immune factors at play.”
 

Autoimmune process drives SPSD

Autoimmunity, even if not detected by serologic studies, is believed to inhibit expression of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors, which, in turn, results in stiffness and spasms. Although what are known as “Dalakas criteria,” proposed in 2009,² describe the “classic” SPSD phenotype, encompassing roughly three-quarters of SPSD patients, there have now been other phenotypes proposed under SPSD, including isolated forms (stiff limb or trunk syndrome) and “nonclassic” phenotypes like SPS-plus (classic features plus brain stem and/or cerebellar involvement),3 overlap syndromes (for example, classic features with refractory epilepsy/limbic encephalitis), and probably the most severe phenotype, progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus.

Early and aggressive therapy with benzodiazepines and other GABA-ergic agonists, as well as immune-based treatments, is considered critical to slowing progression of SPSD. However, the insidious onset of what is often a cluster of vague, nonspecific symptoms is a challenge for clinicians to recognize.

Dalakas_Marinos_PA_web.jpg

“When a patient comes in with muscular spasms, with stiffness in the back, in the legs, and it’s unexplained and it’s not due to spinal cord disease, or multiple sclerosis ... think SPSD,” said Dr. Dalakas. “Check antibodies – that’s the first thing to do.”

Antibody positivity is most helpful at high levels, he added; low titers can be present in autoimmune diabetes and other conditions, as previously mentioned. The real challenge? When a patient is seronegative.
 

Embarking on a diagnostic odyssey

Patients “bounce from one clinician to the next looking for answers,” said Dr. Newsome. “Patients will often start with their general practitioner and be referred to physical therapy, rheumatology, or orthopedics, and other specialists, which could include neurology and/or psychiatry, among others. SPSD is often not considered as a possible diagnosis until the patient develops more concrete symptoms and/or objective signs on exam. Of course, considering this diagnosis starts at knowing that it exists.”

Task-specific phobias and exaggerated acoustic startle or sensory reflex are specific symptoms that can red-flag some SPSD patients, said Dr. Dalakas. “Impaired GABA is also important for fears and anxiety. So, when you have a reduction of GABA you have more phobic neuroses – fear of crossing the street, fear of speaking in public, and they get very tense and they cannot perform.

“If the GABA-ergic pathways are dysfunctional, then there’s a relative hyper-excitability within the nervous system,” said Dr. Newsome. “This can be evaluated with electromyography. “The muscles are unhinged and going crazy: Agonists and antagonists are contracting together, which is abnormal. We will also assess for continuous motor unit potential activity within individual muscles – angry muscles just continuously firing. In our experience, this finding appears to be a pretty specific sign of SPS, especially in the torso.” Importantly, the sudden contraction of muscles along with stiffness can lead to traumatic falls, causing major orthopedic and brain injury.

In early stages of SPSD, a careful history and clinical exam is critical to try to shorten what Dr. Newsome calls the patient’s “diagnostic odyssey.”

“It behooves the clinician to put their hands on the patient. Check their back, their abdomen – try to feel for rigidity, paraspinal muscle spasms, and tightness. These regions of the body often have a ropey feel to them, which is due to chronic muscle spasms and tightness. Most [SPSD] patients will have this present in the thoracolumbar area,” he explained. “Check for hyperlordosis, as this is a hallmark sign on exam in SPSD. Additionally, patients can have rigidity and spasticity in their legs or arms. Also, patients with nonclassical phenotypes can present with a variety of other symptoms and findings on exam, including ataxia, nystagmus, ophthalmoparesis, and dysarthria.”

Lumbar puncture can sometimes reveal signs of inflammation, such as an elevated white blood cell count and oligoclonal bands in spinal fluid.

“The classic teaching was that you can only see such findings in conditions like multiple sclerosis, but that’s not the case,” said Dr. Newsome. “You can see these findings in other autoimmune conditions, including SPSD. Hence, as part of the workup, we will have patients undergo lumbar punctures to assess for these markers of autoimmunity.”

Other mimics of SPSD, including multiple sclerosis, tumors, and spinal stenosis, should be ruled out with MRI of the brain and spine.
 

Treatment options

Because of wide variability in signs and symptoms of the disorder, treatment of SPSD is a highly individualized cocktail of interventions, which might include immunotherapy and GABA-ergic agonists, as well as nonmedication treatments. The response to these agents can be difficult to quantify.

Benzodiazepines (diazepam, clonazepam, baclofen) along with other oral symptomatic treatments are often recommended as first-line therapy because of their ability to enhance GABA.⁴ 

First-line immunotherapy is usually intravenous immunoglobulin, steroids, or plasmapheresis. Second- and third-line agents include rituximab, mycophenolate mofetil, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, and combination immune treatments.

Dr. Newsome and Dr. Dalakas have independently published a step-by-step therapeutic approach to SPSD.^3,5 But in patients with paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome, eradication of their cancer is critical, although, per Dr. Newsome, “this does not always cure SPS and most of these patients still have residual disability.”

But immune-based therapies are only part of what should be a multipronged treatment approach, said Dr. Newsome. He also strongly advocates for non-pharmacological interventions, such as selective physical therapy (stretching, ultrasound, and gait and balance training), heat therapy, aquatherapy, deep-tissue massage or myofascial techniques, osteopathic or chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, and acupressure.³

Because SPSD is considered a progressive disorder for some, a reasonable goal of treatment is to prevent worsening, said Dr. Newsome. This can take time: “We don’t expect the treatments to work overnight. It involves consecutive months and, sometimes, a couple of years of immune treatment before you start to see it impact the person’s life favorably.”

Patients who are not well informed about the long-term goal of treatments might be tempted to abandon the treatments prematurely because they don’t see immediate results, Dr. Newsome added. Encouraging realistic expectations is also important, without dashing hopes.

“I have patients who were marathon runners, and they want to get back to doing marathons. I would love nothing more than for people to get back to their pre-SPSD levels of function. But this may not be a realistic goal. However, this does not mean that quality of life can’t be helped.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Newsome encourages clinicians to reassess regularly, especially because lack of disease biomarkers makes it hard to objectively monitor the impact of therapy.

“It’s always a good rule of thumb, especially in the rare disease space, to step back and ask: ‘Are we on the right treatment path or not?’ If we’re not, then it is important to make sure you have the correct diagnosis. Even when you have a patient who fits the textbook and you, yourself, diagnosed them, it is important to continue to re-evaluate the diagnosis over time, especially if there is consideration of changing treatments. It is also important to make sure there is not something else on top of the stiff person syndrome that is working in parallel to worsen their condition.”
 

Be alert for comorbidity

Undiagnosed comorbid conditions that can complicate SPSD include Parkinson’s disease or myasthenia gravis, to name a couple, which Dr. Newsome has seen more than once. “We’ve seen a few people over the years who have both SPSD and another autoimmune or degenerative neurological condition.”

Diabetes also co-occurs in approximately 30% of people with SPSD, said Dr. Dalakas. “Endocrinologists should also be aware of this connection.”

Paraneoplastic stiff person syndrome is thought to be triggered by cancer, which might not have been diagnosed, making it important to work up patients for malignancy – particularly breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, lymphoma, and thymoma, Dr. Newsome advised.

Although most cases of SPSD are diagnosed in mid-life, the disorder can occur in teenagers and the elderly.

“It’s not the first thing you think of when a 70-year-old patient comes with neck pain, so it’s missed more often, and the prognosis is worse,” Dr. Dalakas warned.
 

What does the future hold?

Like Dr. Newsome, Dr. Dalakas is encouraged when SPSD hits the headlines because, generally, awareness facilitates diagnosis and research. (Both clinicians serve on the medical advisory board of The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation.)

“We are looking for better therapies that target immune factors,” said Dr. Dalakas. “There are several of those that are relevant, so we need to select the best immune marker that we think plays a role in the antibody production,” he said.

“There’s a lot of hope – at least I have a lot of hope for what the future holds with SPSD,” added Dr. Newsome. “More research is needed and it starts with awareness of SPSD.”

Dr. Newsome discloses that he has received consulting fees for serving on scientific advisory boards of Biogen, Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb, EMD Serono, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Horizon Therapeutics, TG Therapeutics; is the study lead principal investigator for a Roche clinical trial; and has received research funding (paid directly to his employing institution) from Biogen, Roche, Lundbeck, Genentech, The Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, U.S. Department of Defense, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Dalakas reports nothing relevant to disclose.

References

1. Chia NH et al. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2023;10(7):1083-94. doi: 10.1002/acn3.51791.

2. Dalakas MC.. Curr Treat Options Neurol. 2009;11(2):102-10. doi: 10.1007/s11940-009-0013-9.

3. Newsome SD and Johnson T. J Neuroimmunol. 2022;369:577915. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2022.577915.

4. Ortiz JF et al. Cureus. 2020;12(12):e11995. doi: 10.7759/cureus.11995.

5. Dalakas CD. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm. 2023;10(3):e200109. doi: 10.1212/NXI.0000000000200109.






 

Lack of vaccination against COVID-19 was associated with a significantly higher risk for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated status and boosted status, new evidence suggests.

A retrospective, population-based cohort study in Alberta, Edmonton, found that between late September 2021 and late January 2022, eligible unvaccinated patients with COVID-19 had a nearly 10-fold higher risk for hospitalization than did patients who were fully vaccinated with two doses. Unvaccinated patients had a nearly 21-fold higher risk than did patients who were boosted with three doses.

“We have shown that eligible nonvaccinated persons, especially in the age strata 50-79 years, accounted for 3,000-4,000 potentially avoidable hospitalizations, 35,000-40,000 avoidable bed-days, and $100–$110 million [Canadian dollars] in avoidable health care costs during a 120-day period coinciding with the fourth (Delta) and fifth (Omicron) COVID-19 waves, respectively,” wrote Sean M. Bagshaw, MD, chair of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and colleagues.

The findings were published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
 

‘Unsatisfactory’ vaccine uptake

While a previous study by Dr. Bagshaw and colleagues recently showed that higher vaccine uptake could have avoided significant intensive care unit admissions and costs, the researchers sought to expand their analysis to include non-ICU use.

The current study examined data from the government of Alberta and the Discharge Abstract Database to assess vaccination status and hospitalization with confirmed SARS-CoV-2. Secondary outcomes included avoidable hospitalizations, avoidable hospital bed-days, and the potential cost avoidance related to COVID-19. 

During the study period, “societal factors contributed to an unsatisfactory voluntary vaccine uptake, particularly in the province of Alberta,” wrote the authors, adding that “only 63.7% and 2.7% of the eligible population in Alberta [had] received two (full) and three (boosted) COVID-19 vaccine doses as of September 27, 2021.” 

The analysis found the highest number of hospitalizations among unvaccinated patients (n = 3,835), compared with vaccinated (n = 1,907) and boosted patients (n = 481). This finding yielded a risk ratio (RR) of hospitalization of 9.7 for unvaccinated patients, compared with fully vaccinated patients, and an RR of 20.6, compared with patients who were boosted. Unvaccinated patients aged 60-69 years had the highest RR for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated (RR, 16.4) and boosted patients (RR, 151.9).

The estimated number of avoidable hospitalizations for unvaccinated patients was 3,439 (total of 36,331 bed-days), compared with vaccinated patients, and 3,764 (total of 40,185 bed-days), compared with boosted patients. 

The avoidable hospitalization-related costs for unvaccinated patients totaled $101.4 million (Canadian dollars) if they had been vaccinated and $110.24 million if they had been boosted.

“Moreover, strained hospital systems and the widespread adoption of crisis standards of care in response to surges in COVID-19 hospitalizations have contributed to unnecessary excess deaths,” wrote the authors. “These are preventable and missed public health opportunities that provoked massive health system disruptions and resource diversions, including deferral of routine health services (e.g., cancer and chronic disease screening and monitoring and scheduled vaccinations), postponement of scheduled procedures and surgeries, and redeployment of health care professionals.” 

Dr. Bagshaw said in an interview that he was not surprised by the findings. “However, I wonder whether the public and those who direct policy and make decisions about the health system would be interested in better understanding the scope and sheer disruption the health system suffered due to COVID-19,” he said.

The current study suggests that “at least some of this could have been avoided,” said Dr. Bagshaw. “I hope we – that is the public, users of the health system, decision-makers and health care professionals – can learn from our experiences.” Studies such as the current analysis “will reinforce the importance of timely and clearly articulated public health promotion, education, and policy,” he added.
 

Economic benefit underestimated

Commenting on the study, David Fisman, MD, MPH, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Toronto, said: “The approach these investigators have taken is clear and straightforward. It is easy to reproduce. It is also entirely consistent with what other scientific groups have been demonstrating for a couple of years now.” Dr. Fisman was not involved with the study.

A group led by Dr. Fisman as senior author has just completed a study examining the effectiveness of the Canadian pandemic response, compared with responses in four peer countries. In the as-yet unpublished paper, the researchers concluded that “relative to the United States, United Kingdom, and France, the Canadian pandemic response was estimated to have averted 94,492, 64,306, and 13,641 deaths, respectively, with more than 480,000 hospitalizations averted and 1 million QALY [quality-adjusted life-years] saved, relative to the United States. A United States pandemic response applied to Canada would have resulted in more than $40 billion in economic losses due to healthcare expenditures and lost QALY; losses relative to the United Kingdom and France would have been $21 billion and $5 billion, respectively. By contrast, an Australian pandemic response would have averted over 28,000 additional deaths and averted nearly $9 billion in costs in Canada.”

Dr. Fisman added that while the current researchers focused their study on the direct protective effects of vaccines, “we know that, even with initial waves of Omicron, vaccinated individuals continued to be protected against infection as well as disease, and even if they were infected, we know from household contact studies that they were less infectious to others. That means that even though the implicit estimate of cost savings that could have been achieved through better coverage are pretty high in this paper, the economic benefit of vaccination is underestimated in this analysis, because we can’t quantify the infections that never happened because of vaccination.”

The study was supported by the Strategic Clinical Networks, Alberta Health Services. Dr. Bagshaw declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Fisman has taken part in advisory boards for Seqirus, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Merck vaccines during the past 3 years.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Lack of vaccination against COVID-19 was associated with a significantly higher risk for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated status and boosted status, new evidence suggests.

A retrospective, population-based cohort study in Alberta, Edmonton, found that between late September 2021 and late January 2022, eligible unvaccinated patients with COVID-19 had a nearly 10-fold higher risk for hospitalization than did patients who were fully vaccinated with two doses. Unvaccinated patients had a nearly 21-fold higher risk than did patients who were boosted with three doses.

“We have shown that eligible nonvaccinated persons, especially in the age strata 50-79 years, accounted for 3,000-4,000 potentially avoidable hospitalizations, 35,000-40,000 avoidable bed-days, and $100–$110 million [Canadian dollars] in avoidable health care costs during a 120-day period coinciding with the fourth (Delta) and fifth (Omicron) COVID-19 waves, respectively,” wrote Sean M. Bagshaw, MD, chair of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and colleagues.

The findings were published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
 

‘Unsatisfactory’ vaccine uptake

While a previous study by Dr. Bagshaw and colleagues recently showed that higher vaccine uptake could have avoided significant intensive care unit admissions and costs, the researchers sought to expand their analysis to include non-ICU use.

The current study examined data from the government of Alberta and the Discharge Abstract Database to assess vaccination status and hospitalization with confirmed SARS-CoV-2. Secondary outcomes included avoidable hospitalizations, avoidable hospital bed-days, and the potential cost avoidance related to COVID-19. 

During the study period, “societal factors contributed to an unsatisfactory voluntary vaccine uptake, particularly in the province of Alberta,” wrote the authors, adding that “only 63.7% and 2.7% of the eligible population in Alberta [had] received two (full) and three (boosted) COVID-19 vaccine doses as of September 27, 2021.” 

The analysis found the highest number of hospitalizations among unvaccinated patients (n = 3,835), compared with vaccinated (n = 1,907) and boosted patients (n = 481). This finding yielded a risk ratio (RR) of hospitalization of 9.7 for unvaccinated patients, compared with fully vaccinated patients, and an RR of 20.6, compared with patients who were boosted. Unvaccinated patients aged 60-69 years had the highest RR for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated (RR, 16.4) and boosted patients (RR, 151.9).

The estimated number of avoidable hospitalizations for unvaccinated patients was 3,439 (total of 36,331 bed-days), compared with vaccinated patients, and 3,764 (total of 40,185 bed-days), compared with boosted patients. 

The avoidable hospitalization-related costs for unvaccinated patients totaled $101.4 million (Canadian dollars) if they had been vaccinated and $110.24 million if they had been boosted.

“Moreover, strained hospital systems and the widespread adoption of crisis standards of care in response to surges in COVID-19 hospitalizations have contributed to unnecessary excess deaths,” wrote the authors. “These are preventable and missed public health opportunities that provoked massive health system disruptions and resource diversions, including deferral of routine health services (e.g., cancer and chronic disease screening and monitoring and scheduled vaccinations), postponement of scheduled procedures and surgeries, and redeployment of health care professionals.” 

Dr. Bagshaw said in an interview that he was not surprised by the findings. “However, I wonder whether the public and those who direct policy and make decisions about the health system would be interested in better understanding the scope and sheer disruption the health system suffered due to COVID-19,” he said.

The current study suggests that “at least some of this could have been avoided,” said Dr. Bagshaw. “I hope we – that is the public, users of the health system, decision-makers and health care professionals – can learn from our experiences.” Studies such as the current analysis “will reinforce the importance of timely and clearly articulated public health promotion, education, and policy,” he added.
 

Economic benefit underestimated

Commenting on the study, David Fisman, MD, MPH, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Toronto, said: “The approach these investigators have taken is clear and straightforward. It is easy to reproduce. It is also entirely consistent with what other scientific groups have been demonstrating for a couple of years now.” Dr. Fisman was not involved with the study.

A group led by Dr. Fisman as senior author has just completed a study examining the effectiveness of the Canadian pandemic response, compared with responses in four peer countries. In the as-yet unpublished paper, the researchers concluded that “relative to the United States, United Kingdom, and France, the Canadian pandemic response was estimated to have averted 94,492, 64,306, and 13,641 deaths, respectively, with more than 480,000 hospitalizations averted and 1 million QALY [quality-adjusted life-years] saved, relative to the United States. A United States pandemic response applied to Canada would have resulted in more than $40 billion in economic losses due to healthcare expenditures and lost QALY; losses relative to the United Kingdom and France would have been $21 billion and $5 billion, respectively. By contrast, an Australian pandemic response would have averted over 28,000 additional deaths and averted nearly $9 billion in costs in Canada.”

Dr. Fisman added that while the current researchers focused their study on the direct protective effects of vaccines, “we know that, even with initial waves of Omicron, vaccinated individuals continued to be protected against infection as well as disease, and even if they were infected, we know from household contact studies that they were less infectious to others. That means that even though the implicit estimate of cost savings that could have been achieved through better coverage are pretty high in this paper, the economic benefit of vaccination is underestimated in this analysis, because we can’t quantify the infections that never happened because of vaccination.”

The study was supported by the Strategic Clinical Networks, Alberta Health Services. Dr. Bagshaw declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Fisman has taken part in advisory boards for Seqirus, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Merck vaccines during the past 3 years.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Lack of vaccination against COVID-19 was associated with a significantly higher risk for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated status and boosted status, new evidence suggests.

A retrospective, population-based cohort study in Alberta, Edmonton, found that between late September 2021 and late January 2022, eligible unvaccinated patients with COVID-19 had a nearly 10-fold higher risk for hospitalization than did patients who were fully vaccinated with two doses. Unvaccinated patients had a nearly 21-fold higher risk than did patients who were boosted with three doses.

“We have shown that eligible nonvaccinated persons, especially in the age strata 50-79 years, accounted for 3,000-4,000 potentially avoidable hospitalizations, 35,000-40,000 avoidable bed-days, and $100–$110 million [Canadian dollars] in avoidable health care costs during a 120-day period coinciding with the fourth (Delta) and fifth (Omicron) COVID-19 waves, respectively,” wrote Sean M. Bagshaw, MD, chair of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and colleagues.

The findings were published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
 

‘Unsatisfactory’ vaccine uptake

While a previous study by Dr. Bagshaw and colleagues recently showed that higher vaccine uptake could have avoided significant intensive care unit admissions and costs, the researchers sought to expand their analysis to include non-ICU use.

The current study examined data from the government of Alberta and the Discharge Abstract Database to assess vaccination status and hospitalization with confirmed SARS-CoV-2. Secondary outcomes included avoidable hospitalizations, avoidable hospital bed-days, and the potential cost avoidance related to COVID-19. 

During the study period, “societal factors contributed to an unsatisfactory voluntary vaccine uptake, particularly in the province of Alberta,” wrote the authors, adding that “only 63.7% and 2.7% of the eligible population in Alberta [had] received two (full) and three (boosted) COVID-19 vaccine doses as of September 27, 2021.” 

The analysis found the highest number of hospitalizations among unvaccinated patients (n = 3,835), compared with vaccinated (n = 1,907) and boosted patients (n = 481). This finding yielded a risk ratio (RR) of hospitalization of 9.7 for unvaccinated patients, compared with fully vaccinated patients, and an RR of 20.6, compared with patients who were boosted. Unvaccinated patients aged 60-69 years had the highest RR for hospitalization, compared with vaccinated (RR, 16.4) and boosted patients (RR, 151.9).

The estimated number of avoidable hospitalizations for unvaccinated patients was 3,439 (total of 36,331 bed-days), compared with vaccinated patients, and 3,764 (total of 40,185 bed-days), compared with boosted patients. 

The avoidable hospitalization-related costs for unvaccinated patients totaled $101.4 million (Canadian dollars) if they had been vaccinated and $110.24 million if they had been boosted.

“Moreover, strained hospital systems and the widespread adoption of crisis standards of care in response to surges in COVID-19 hospitalizations have contributed to unnecessary excess deaths,” wrote the authors. “These are preventable and missed public health opportunities that provoked massive health system disruptions and resource diversions, including deferral of routine health services (e.g., cancer and chronic disease screening and monitoring and scheduled vaccinations), postponement of scheduled procedures and surgeries, and redeployment of health care professionals.” 

Dr. Bagshaw said in an interview that he was not surprised by the findings. “However, I wonder whether the public and those who direct policy and make decisions about the health system would be interested in better understanding the scope and sheer disruption the health system suffered due to COVID-19,” he said.

The current study suggests that “at least some of this could have been avoided,” said Dr. Bagshaw. “I hope we – that is the public, users of the health system, decision-makers and health care professionals – can learn from our experiences.” Studies such as the current analysis “will reinforce the importance of timely and clearly articulated public health promotion, education, and policy,” he added.
 

Economic benefit underestimated

Commenting on the study, David Fisman, MD, MPH, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Toronto, said: “The approach these investigators have taken is clear and straightforward. It is easy to reproduce. It is also entirely consistent with what other scientific groups have been demonstrating for a couple of years now.” Dr. Fisman was not involved with the study.

A group led by Dr. Fisman as senior author has just completed a study examining the effectiveness of the Canadian pandemic response, compared with responses in four peer countries. In the as-yet unpublished paper, the researchers concluded that “relative to the United States, United Kingdom, and France, the Canadian pandemic response was estimated to have averted 94,492, 64,306, and 13,641 deaths, respectively, with more than 480,000 hospitalizations averted and 1 million QALY [quality-adjusted life-years] saved, relative to the United States. A United States pandemic response applied to Canada would have resulted in more than $40 billion in economic losses due to healthcare expenditures and lost QALY; losses relative to the United Kingdom and France would have been $21 billion and $5 billion, respectively. By contrast, an Australian pandemic response would have averted over 28,000 additional deaths and averted nearly $9 billion in costs in Canada.”

Dr. Fisman added that while the current researchers focused their study on the direct protective effects of vaccines, “we know that, even with initial waves of Omicron, vaccinated individuals continued to be protected against infection as well as disease, and even if they were infected, we know from household contact studies that they were less infectious to others. That means that even though the implicit estimate of cost savings that could have been achieved through better coverage are pretty high in this paper, the economic benefit of vaccination is underestimated in this analysis, because we can’t quantify the infections that never happened because of vaccination.”

The study was supported by the Strategic Clinical Networks, Alberta Health Services. Dr. Bagshaw declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Fisman has taken part in advisory boards for Seqirus, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Merck vaccines during the past 3 years.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Solriamfetol (Sunosi), a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor, is probably more effective than other wakefulness-promoting medications in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who have residual daytime sleepiness after conventional treatment, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis.

In a systematic review of 14 trials that included more than 3,000 patients, solriamfetol was associated with improvements of 3.85 points on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score, compared with placebo.

“We found that solriamfetol is almost twice as effective as modafinil-armodafinil – the cheaper, older option – in improving the ESS score and much more effective at improving the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT),” study author Tyler Pitre, MD, an internal medicine physician at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., said in an interview.

The findings were published online in Annals of Internal Medicine.
 

High-certainty evidence

The analysis included 3,085 adults with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) who were receiving or were eligible for conventional OSA treatment such as positive airway pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to either placebo or any EDS pharmacotherapy (armodafinil, modafinil, solriamfetol, or pitolisant). The primary outcomes of the analysis were change in ESS and MWT. Secondary outcomes were drug-related adverse events.

sleepy_man_web.jpg

The trials had a median follow-up time of 4 weeks. The meta-analysis showed that solriamfetol improves ESS to a greater extent than placebo (high certainty), armodafinil-modafinil and pitolisant (moderate certainty). Compared with placebo, the mean difference in ESS scores for solriamfetol, armodafinil-modafinil, and pitolisant was –3.85, –2.25, and –2.78, respectively.

The analysis yielded high-certainty evidence that solriamfetol and armodafinil-modafinil improved MWT, compared with placebo. The former was “probably superior,” while pitolisant “may have little to no effect on MWT, compared with placebo,” write the authors. The standardized mean difference in MWT scores, compared with placebo, was 0.90 for solriamfetol and 0.41 for armodafinil-modafinil. “Solriamfetol is probably superior to armodafinil-modafinil in improving MWT (SMD, 0.49),” say the authors.

Compared with placebo, armodafinil-modafinil probably increases the risk for discontinuation due to adverse events (relative risk, 2.01), and solriamfetol may increase the risk for discontinuation (RR, 2.04), according to the authors. Pitolisant “may have little to no effect on drug discontinuations due to adverse events,” write the authors.

Although solriamfetol may have led to more discontinuations than armodafinil-modafinil, “we did not find convincing evidence of serious adverse events, albeit with very short-term follow-up,” they add.

The most common side effects for all interventions were headaches, insomnia, and anxiety. Headaches were most likely with armodafinil-modafinil (RR, 1.87), and insomnia was most likely with pitolisant (RR, 7.25).

“Although solriamfetol appears most effective, comorbid hypertension and costs may be barriers to its use,” say the researchers. “Furthermore, there are potentially effective candidate therapies such as methylphenidate, atomoxetine, or caffeine, which have not been examined in randomized clinical trials.”

Although EDS is reported in 40%-58% of patients with OSA and can persist in 6%-18% despite PAP therapy, most non-sleep specialists may not be aware of pharmacologic options, said Dr. Pitre. “I have not seen a study that looks at the prescribing habits of physicians for this condition, but I suspect that primary care physicians are not prescribing modafinil-armodafinil frequently for this and less so for solriamfetol,” he said. “I hope this paper builds awareness of this condition and also informs clinicians on the options available to patients, as well as common side effects to counsel them on before starting treatment.” 

Dr. Pitre was surprised at the magnitude of solriamfetol’s superiority to modafinil-armodafinil but cautioned that solriamfetol has been shown to increase blood pressure in higher doses. It therefore must be prescribed carefully, “especially to a population of patients who often have comorbid hypertension,” he said.

Some limitations of the analysis were that all trials were conducted in high-income countries (most commonly the United States). Moreover, 77% of participants were White, and 71% were male.
 

Beneficial adjunctive therapy

Commenting on the findings, Sogol Javaheri, MD, MPH, who was not involved in the research, said that they confirm those of prior studies and are “consistent with what my colleagues and I experience in our clinical practices.”

Dr. Javaheri is associate program director of the sleep medicine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.

While sleep medicine specialists are more likely than others to prescribe these medications, “any clinician may use these medications, ideally if they have ruled out other potential reversible causes of EDS,” said Dr. Javaheri. “The medications do not treat the underlying cause, which is why it’s important to use them as an adjunct to conventional therapy that actually treats the underlying sleep disorder and to rule out additional potential causes of sleepiness that are treatable.”

These potential causes might include insufficient sleep (less than 7 hours per night), untreated anemia, and incompletely treated sleep disorders, she explained. In sleep medicine, modafinil is usually the treatment of choice because of its lower cost, but it may reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraception. Solriamfetol, however, does not. “Additionally, I look forward to validation of pitolisant for treatment of EDS in OSA patients, as it is not a controlled substance and may benefit patients with a history of substance abuse or who may be at higher risk of addiction,” said Dr. Javaheri.

The study was conducted without outside funding. Dr. Pitre and Dr. Javaheri report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Solriamfetol (Sunosi), a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor, is probably more effective than other wakefulness-promoting medications in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who have residual daytime sleepiness after conventional treatment, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis.

In a systematic review of 14 trials that included more than 3,000 patients, solriamfetol was associated with improvements of 3.85 points on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score, compared with placebo.

“We found that solriamfetol is almost twice as effective as modafinil-armodafinil – the cheaper, older option – in improving the ESS score and much more effective at improving the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT),” study author Tyler Pitre, MD, an internal medicine physician at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., said in an interview.

The findings were published online in Annals of Internal Medicine.
 

High-certainty evidence

The analysis included 3,085 adults with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) who were receiving or were eligible for conventional OSA treatment such as positive airway pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to either placebo or any EDS pharmacotherapy (armodafinil, modafinil, solriamfetol, or pitolisant). The primary outcomes of the analysis were change in ESS and MWT. Secondary outcomes were drug-related adverse events.

sleepy_man_web.jpg

The trials had a median follow-up time of 4 weeks. The meta-analysis showed that solriamfetol improves ESS to a greater extent than placebo (high certainty), armodafinil-modafinil and pitolisant (moderate certainty). Compared with placebo, the mean difference in ESS scores for solriamfetol, armodafinil-modafinil, and pitolisant was –3.85, –2.25, and –2.78, respectively.

The analysis yielded high-certainty evidence that solriamfetol and armodafinil-modafinil improved MWT, compared with placebo. The former was “probably superior,” while pitolisant “may have little to no effect on MWT, compared with placebo,” write the authors. The standardized mean difference in MWT scores, compared with placebo, was 0.90 for solriamfetol and 0.41 for armodafinil-modafinil. “Solriamfetol is probably superior to armodafinil-modafinil in improving MWT (SMD, 0.49),” say the authors.

Compared with placebo, armodafinil-modafinil probably increases the risk for discontinuation due to adverse events (relative risk, 2.01), and solriamfetol may increase the risk for discontinuation (RR, 2.04), according to the authors. Pitolisant “may have little to no effect on drug discontinuations due to adverse events,” write the authors.

Although solriamfetol may have led to more discontinuations than armodafinil-modafinil, “we did not find convincing evidence of serious adverse events, albeit with very short-term follow-up,” they add.

The most common side effects for all interventions were headaches, insomnia, and anxiety. Headaches were most likely with armodafinil-modafinil (RR, 1.87), and insomnia was most likely with pitolisant (RR, 7.25).

“Although solriamfetol appears most effective, comorbid hypertension and costs may be barriers to its use,” say the researchers. “Furthermore, there are potentially effective candidate therapies such as methylphenidate, atomoxetine, or caffeine, which have not been examined in randomized clinical trials.”

Although EDS is reported in 40%-58% of patients with OSA and can persist in 6%-18% despite PAP therapy, most non-sleep specialists may not be aware of pharmacologic options, said Dr. Pitre. “I have not seen a study that looks at the prescribing habits of physicians for this condition, but I suspect that primary care physicians are not prescribing modafinil-armodafinil frequently for this and less so for solriamfetol,” he said. “I hope this paper builds awareness of this condition and also informs clinicians on the options available to patients, as well as common side effects to counsel them on before starting treatment.” 

Dr. Pitre was surprised at the magnitude of solriamfetol’s superiority to modafinil-armodafinil but cautioned that solriamfetol has been shown to increase blood pressure in higher doses. It therefore must be prescribed carefully, “especially to a population of patients who often have comorbid hypertension,” he said.

Some limitations of the analysis were that all trials were conducted in high-income countries (most commonly the United States). Moreover, 77% of participants were White, and 71% were male.
 

Beneficial adjunctive therapy

Commenting on the findings, Sogol Javaheri, MD, MPH, who was not involved in the research, said that they confirm those of prior studies and are “consistent with what my colleagues and I experience in our clinical practices.”

Dr. Javaheri is associate program director of the sleep medicine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.

While sleep medicine specialists are more likely than others to prescribe these medications, “any clinician may use these medications, ideally if they have ruled out other potential reversible causes of EDS,” said Dr. Javaheri. “The medications do not treat the underlying cause, which is why it’s important to use them as an adjunct to conventional therapy that actually treats the underlying sleep disorder and to rule out additional potential causes of sleepiness that are treatable.”

These potential causes might include insufficient sleep (less than 7 hours per night), untreated anemia, and incompletely treated sleep disorders, she explained. In sleep medicine, modafinil is usually the treatment of choice because of its lower cost, but it may reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraception. Solriamfetol, however, does not. “Additionally, I look forward to validation of pitolisant for treatment of EDS in OSA patients, as it is not a controlled substance and may benefit patients with a history of substance abuse or who may be at higher risk of addiction,” said Dr. Javaheri.

The study was conducted without outside funding. Dr. Pitre and Dr. Javaheri report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Solriamfetol (Sunosi), a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor, is probably more effective than other wakefulness-promoting medications in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who have residual daytime sleepiness after conventional treatment, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis.

In a systematic review of 14 trials that included more than 3,000 patients, solriamfetol was associated with improvements of 3.85 points on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score, compared with placebo.

“We found that solriamfetol is almost twice as effective as modafinil-armodafinil – the cheaper, older option – in improving the ESS score and much more effective at improving the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT),” study author Tyler Pitre, MD, an internal medicine physician at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., said in an interview.

The findings were published online in Annals of Internal Medicine.
 

High-certainty evidence

The analysis included 3,085 adults with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) who were receiving or were eligible for conventional OSA treatment such as positive airway pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to either placebo or any EDS pharmacotherapy (armodafinil, modafinil, solriamfetol, or pitolisant). The primary outcomes of the analysis were change in ESS and MWT. Secondary outcomes were drug-related adverse events.

sleepy_man_web.jpg

The trials had a median follow-up time of 4 weeks. The meta-analysis showed that solriamfetol improves ESS to a greater extent than placebo (high certainty), armodafinil-modafinil and pitolisant (moderate certainty). Compared with placebo, the mean difference in ESS scores for solriamfetol, armodafinil-modafinil, and pitolisant was –3.85, –2.25, and –2.78, respectively.

The analysis yielded high-certainty evidence that solriamfetol and armodafinil-modafinil improved MWT, compared with placebo. The former was “probably superior,” while pitolisant “may have little to no effect on MWT, compared with placebo,” write the authors. The standardized mean difference in MWT scores, compared with placebo, was 0.90 for solriamfetol and 0.41 for armodafinil-modafinil. “Solriamfetol is probably superior to armodafinil-modafinil in improving MWT (SMD, 0.49),” say the authors.

Compared with placebo, armodafinil-modafinil probably increases the risk for discontinuation due to adverse events (relative risk, 2.01), and solriamfetol may increase the risk for discontinuation (RR, 2.04), according to the authors. Pitolisant “may have little to no effect on drug discontinuations due to adverse events,” write the authors.

Although solriamfetol may have led to more discontinuations than armodafinil-modafinil, “we did not find convincing evidence of serious adverse events, albeit with very short-term follow-up,” they add.

The most common side effects for all interventions were headaches, insomnia, and anxiety. Headaches were most likely with armodafinil-modafinil (RR, 1.87), and insomnia was most likely with pitolisant (RR, 7.25).

“Although solriamfetol appears most effective, comorbid hypertension and costs may be barriers to its use,” say the researchers. “Furthermore, there are potentially effective candidate therapies such as methylphenidate, atomoxetine, or caffeine, which have not been examined in randomized clinical trials.”

Although EDS is reported in 40%-58% of patients with OSA and can persist in 6%-18% despite PAP therapy, most non-sleep specialists may not be aware of pharmacologic options, said Dr. Pitre. “I have not seen a study that looks at the prescribing habits of physicians for this condition, but I suspect that primary care physicians are not prescribing modafinil-armodafinil frequently for this and less so for solriamfetol,” he said. “I hope this paper builds awareness of this condition and also informs clinicians on the options available to patients, as well as common side effects to counsel them on before starting treatment.” 

Dr. Pitre was surprised at the magnitude of solriamfetol’s superiority to modafinil-armodafinil but cautioned that solriamfetol has been shown to increase blood pressure in higher doses. It therefore must be prescribed carefully, “especially to a population of patients who often have comorbid hypertension,” he said.

Some limitations of the analysis were that all trials were conducted in high-income countries (most commonly the United States). Moreover, 77% of participants were White, and 71% were male.
 

Beneficial adjunctive therapy

Commenting on the findings, Sogol Javaheri, MD, MPH, who was not involved in the research, said that they confirm those of prior studies and are “consistent with what my colleagues and I experience in our clinical practices.”

Dr. Javaheri is associate program director of the sleep medicine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.

While sleep medicine specialists are more likely than others to prescribe these medications, “any clinician may use these medications, ideally if they have ruled out other potential reversible causes of EDS,” said Dr. Javaheri. “The medications do not treat the underlying cause, which is why it’s important to use them as an adjunct to conventional therapy that actually treats the underlying sleep disorder and to rule out additional potential causes of sleepiness that are treatable.”

These potential causes might include insufficient sleep (less than 7 hours per night), untreated anemia, and incompletely treated sleep disorders, she explained. In sleep medicine, modafinil is usually the treatment of choice because of its lower cost, but it may reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraception. Solriamfetol, however, does not. “Additionally, I look forward to validation of pitolisant for treatment of EDS in OSA patients, as it is not a controlled substance and may benefit patients with a history of substance abuse or who may be at higher risk of addiction,” said Dr. Javaheri.

The study was conducted without outside funding. Dr. Pitre and Dr. Javaheri report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Exposure to four or more CT scans before age 18 years is associated with more than double the risk for certain cancers into early adulthood, data indicate.
 

In a population-based case-control study that included more than 85,000 participants, researchers found a ninefold increased risk of intracranial tumors among children who received four or more CT scans.

The results “indicate that judicious CT usage and radiation-reducing techniques should be advocated,” Yu-Hsuan Joni Shao, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics at Taipei (Taiwan) Medical University, and colleagues wrote.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
 

Dose-response relationship

The investigators used the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan to identify 7,807 patients under age 25 years with intracranial tumors (grades I-IV), leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, or Hodgkin lymphomas that had been diagnosed in a 14-year span between the years 2000 and 2013. They matched each case with 10 control participants without cancer by sex, date of birth, and date of entry into the cohort.

Radiation exposure was calculated for each patient according to number and type of CT scans received and an estimated organ-specific cumulative dose based on previously published models. The investigators excluded patients from the analysis if they had a diagnosis of any malignant disease before the study period or if they had any cancer-predisposing conditions, such as Down syndrome (which entails an increased risk of leukemia) or immunodeficiency (which may require multiple CT scans).

Compared with no exposure, exposure to a single pediatric CT scan was not associated with increased cancer risk. Exposure to two to three CT scans, however, was associated with an increased risk for intracranial tumour (adjusted odds ratio, 2.36), but not for leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or Hodgkin lymphoma.  Exposure to four or more CT scans was associated with increased risk for intracranial tumor (aOR, 9.01), leukemia (aOR, 4.80), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (aOR, 6.76), but not for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The researchers also found a dose-response relationship. Participants in the top quintile of cumulative brain radiation dose had a significantly higher risk for intracranial tumor, compared with nonexposed participants (aOR, 3.61), although this relationship was not seen with the other cancers.

Age at exposure was also a significant factor. Children exposed to four or more CT scans at or before age 6 years had the highest risk for cancer (aOR, 22.95), followed by the same number of scans in those aged 7-12 years (aOR, 5.69) and those aged 13-18 years (aOR, 3.20).

The authors noted that, although these cancers are uncommon in children, “our work reinforces the importance of radiation protection strategies, addressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unnecessary CT scans should be avoided, and special attention should be paid to patients who require repeated CT scans. Parents and pediatric patients should be well informed on risks and benefits before radiological procedures and encouraged to participate in decision-making around imaging.”
 

True risks underestimated?  

Commenting on the findings, Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and an expert on the impact of CT scans on patient outcomes, said that she trusts the authors’ overall findings. But “because of the direction of their biases,” the study design “doesn’t let me accept their conclusion that one CT does not elevate the risk.

“It’s an interesting study that found the risk of brain cancer is more than doubled in children who undergo two or more CT scans, but in many ways, their assumptions will underestimate the true risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman, who is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. She said reasons for this include the fact that the investigators used estimated, rather than actual radiation doses; that their estimates “reflect doses far lower than we have found actually occur in clinical practice”; that they do not differentiate between a low-dose or a high-dose CT; and that that they include a long, 3-year lag during which leukemia can develop after a CT scan.

“They did a lot of really well-done adjustments to ensure that they were not overestimating risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman. “They made sure to delete children who had cancer susceptibility syndrome, they included a lag of 3 years, assuming that there could be hidden cancers for up to 3 years after the first imaging study when they might have had a preexisting cancer. These are decisions that ensure that any cancer risk they find is real, but it also means that the risks that are estimated are almost certainly an underestimate of the true risks.”

The study was conducted without external funding. The authors declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Smith-Bindman is a cofounder of Alara Imaging, a company focused on collecting and reporting radiation dose information associated with CT.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Exposure to four or more CT scans before age 18 years is associated with more than double the risk for certain cancers into early adulthood, data indicate.
 

In a population-based case-control study that included more than 85,000 participants, researchers found a ninefold increased risk of intracranial tumors among children who received four or more CT scans.

The results “indicate that judicious CT usage and radiation-reducing techniques should be advocated,” Yu-Hsuan Joni Shao, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics at Taipei (Taiwan) Medical University, and colleagues wrote.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
 

Dose-response relationship

The investigators used the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan to identify 7,807 patients under age 25 years with intracranial tumors (grades I-IV), leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, or Hodgkin lymphomas that had been diagnosed in a 14-year span between the years 2000 and 2013. They matched each case with 10 control participants without cancer by sex, date of birth, and date of entry into the cohort.

Radiation exposure was calculated for each patient according to number and type of CT scans received and an estimated organ-specific cumulative dose based on previously published models. The investigators excluded patients from the analysis if they had a diagnosis of any malignant disease before the study period or if they had any cancer-predisposing conditions, such as Down syndrome (which entails an increased risk of leukemia) or immunodeficiency (which may require multiple CT scans).

Compared with no exposure, exposure to a single pediatric CT scan was not associated with increased cancer risk. Exposure to two to three CT scans, however, was associated with an increased risk for intracranial tumour (adjusted odds ratio, 2.36), but not for leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or Hodgkin lymphoma.  Exposure to four or more CT scans was associated with increased risk for intracranial tumor (aOR, 9.01), leukemia (aOR, 4.80), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (aOR, 6.76), but not for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The researchers also found a dose-response relationship. Participants in the top quintile of cumulative brain radiation dose had a significantly higher risk for intracranial tumor, compared with nonexposed participants (aOR, 3.61), although this relationship was not seen with the other cancers.

Age at exposure was also a significant factor. Children exposed to four or more CT scans at or before age 6 years had the highest risk for cancer (aOR, 22.95), followed by the same number of scans in those aged 7-12 years (aOR, 5.69) and those aged 13-18 years (aOR, 3.20).

The authors noted that, although these cancers are uncommon in children, “our work reinforces the importance of radiation protection strategies, addressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unnecessary CT scans should be avoided, and special attention should be paid to patients who require repeated CT scans. Parents and pediatric patients should be well informed on risks and benefits before radiological procedures and encouraged to participate in decision-making around imaging.”
 

True risks underestimated?  

Commenting on the findings, Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and an expert on the impact of CT scans on patient outcomes, said that she trusts the authors’ overall findings. But “because of the direction of their biases,” the study design “doesn’t let me accept their conclusion that one CT does not elevate the risk.

“It’s an interesting study that found the risk of brain cancer is more than doubled in children who undergo two or more CT scans, but in many ways, their assumptions will underestimate the true risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman, who is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. She said reasons for this include the fact that the investigators used estimated, rather than actual radiation doses; that their estimates “reflect doses far lower than we have found actually occur in clinical practice”; that they do not differentiate between a low-dose or a high-dose CT; and that that they include a long, 3-year lag during which leukemia can develop after a CT scan.

“They did a lot of really well-done adjustments to ensure that they were not overestimating risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman. “They made sure to delete children who had cancer susceptibility syndrome, they included a lag of 3 years, assuming that there could be hidden cancers for up to 3 years after the first imaging study when they might have had a preexisting cancer. These are decisions that ensure that any cancer risk they find is real, but it also means that the risks that are estimated are almost certainly an underestimate of the true risks.”

The study was conducted without external funding. The authors declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Smith-Bindman is a cofounder of Alara Imaging, a company focused on collecting and reporting radiation dose information associated with CT.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Exposure to four or more CT scans before age 18 years is associated with more than double the risk for certain cancers into early adulthood, data indicate.
 

In a population-based case-control study that included more than 85,000 participants, researchers found a ninefold increased risk of intracranial tumors among children who received four or more CT scans.

The results “indicate that judicious CT usage and radiation-reducing techniques should be advocated,” Yu-Hsuan Joni Shao, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics at Taipei (Taiwan) Medical University, and colleagues wrote.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
 

Dose-response relationship

The investigators used the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan to identify 7,807 patients under age 25 years with intracranial tumors (grades I-IV), leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, or Hodgkin lymphomas that had been diagnosed in a 14-year span between the years 2000 and 2013. They matched each case with 10 control participants without cancer by sex, date of birth, and date of entry into the cohort.

Radiation exposure was calculated for each patient according to number and type of CT scans received and an estimated organ-specific cumulative dose based on previously published models. The investigators excluded patients from the analysis if they had a diagnosis of any malignant disease before the study period or if they had any cancer-predisposing conditions, such as Down syndrome (which entails an increased risk of leukemia) or immunodeficiency (which may require multiple CT scans).

Compared with no exposure, exposure to a single pediatric CT scan was not associated with increased cancer risk. Exposure to two to three CT scans, however, was associated with an increased risk for intracranial tumour (adjusted odds ratio, 2.36), but not for leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or Hodgkin lymphoma.  Exposure to four or more CT scans was associated with increased risk for intracranial tumor (aOR, 9.01), leukemia (aOR, 4.80), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (aOR, 6.76), but not for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The researchers also found a dose-response relationship. Participants in the top quintile of cumulative brain radiation dose had a significantly higher risk for intracranial tumor, compared with nonexposed participants (aOR, 3.61), although this relationship was not seen with the other cancers.

Age at exposure was also a significant factor. Children exposed to four or more CT scans at or before age 6 years had the highest risk for cancer (aOR, 22.95), followed by the same number of scans in those aged 7-12 years (aOR, 5.69) and those aged 13-18 years (aOR, 3.20).

The authors noted that, although these cancers are uncommon in children, “our work reinforces the importance of radiation protection strategies, addressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unnecessary CT scans should be avoided, and special attention should be paid to patients who require repeated CT scans. Parents and pediatric patients should be well informed on risks and benefits before radiological procedures and encouraged to participate in decision-making around imaging.”
 

True risks underestimated?  

Commenting on the findings, Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and an expert on the impact of CT scans on patient outcomes, said that she trusts the authors’ overall findings. But “because of the direction of their biases,” the study design “doesn’t let me accept their conclusion that one CT does not elevate the risk.

“It’s an interesting study that found the risk of brain cancer is more than doubled in children who undergo two or more CT scans, but in many ways, their assumptions will underestimate the true risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman, who is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. She said reasons for this include the fact that the investigators used estimated, rather than actual radiation doses; that their estimates “reflect doses far lower than we have found actually occur in clinical practice”; that they do not differentiate between a low-dose or a high-dose CT; and that that they include a long, 3-year lag during which leukemia can develop after a CT scan.

“They did a lot of really well-done adjustments to ensure that they were not overestimating risk,” said Dr. Smith-Bindman. “They made sure to delete children who had cancer susceptibility syndrome, they included a lag of 3 years, assuming that there could be hidden cancers for up to 3 years after the first imaging study when they might have had a preexisting cancer. These are decisions that ensure that any cancer risk they find is real, but it also means that the risks that are estimated are almost certainly an underestimate of the true risks.”

The study was conducted without external funding. The authors declared no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Smith-Bindman is a cofounder of Alara Imaging, a company focused on collecting and reporting radiation dose information associated with CT.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.