BTMB-High Basket trial: A multicenter phase II trial of nivolumab monotherapy in patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancers with high blood tumor mutational burden (bTMB).

Abstract

TPS179 Background: Tumor mutational burden (TMB) is an emerging biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has been reported to effectively identify patients likely to respond to ICIs by effectively and non-invasively evaluating the TMB in the tumor in NSCLC and gastric cancer. Methods: We are conducting an investigator-initiated multicenter phase II basket trial to investigate efficacy and safety of nivolumab monotherapy in patients with advanced gastrointestinal (GI) cancers with high bTMB identified by ctDNA analysis as part of the Nationwide Cancer Genome Screening Project (SCRUM-Japan GI-SCREEN). Eligibility criteria include histologically confirmed unresectable or recurrent GI malignancies; ECOG PS of 0 or 1; refractory or intolerant to the standard therapies; and high bTMB identified by a 73-gene sequencing ctDNA panel (Guardant360) regardless of microsatellite instability status. Patients will be enrolled into one of four disease-specific cohorts (colorectal, gastric, esophageal, and other GI cancer cohort), and receive intravenous nivolumab monotherapy of 360 mg every 3 weeks. The bTMB score is calculated by adjustment of mutation count by tumor fraction, and tentative bTMB level cut-offs were determined according to objective response rate (ORR) reported for ICI treatment for each tumor subtype in previous trials. The trial will utilize a two-stage design with a Bayesian hierarchical model, and tentative bTMB level cut-off will be re-assessed in the first stage. Primary endpoint in each stage is the disease control rate at 6 week and the ORR assessed by investigators per RECIST v1.1, respectively. Target sample size is determined as 70 in total so that the statistical power in each disease-specific cohort calculated based on a Bayesian posterior distribution attains 70 to 80% with one-sided alpha level in each cohort of approximately 10%. For biomarker analysis, tumor tissue and ctDNA will be serially collected and analyzed by whole-exome, transcriptome, and T cell receptor sequencing. This trial was initiated since September 2018. Clinical trial information: UMIN000033182.