Multisite institutional study of efficacy and safety of cabozantinib following immunotherapy in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Abstract

559 Background: Cabozantinib, a multikanase inhibitor, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of advanced stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) following progression on sorafenib. The CELESTIAL study which demonstrated benefit from cabozantinib following sorafenib included only patients with Child Pugh class A liver function. Recently, bevacizumab plus atezolizumab has replaced sorafenib as the first line treatment for HCC. It is unclear whether there is benefit from using Cabozantinib following progression on immunotherapy as CELESTIAL trial included very few patients who received prior immunotherapy. We describe the outcomes of individuals with advanced stage HCC treated with Cabozantinib following progression on immunotherapy. Methods: This was a multicenter, retrospective analysis of patients with advanced HCC diagnosed between 2010-2021 at Mayo Clinic Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota. Progression free survival (PFS) and median overall survival analysis were performed using Kaplan-Meier method. Results: We identified a total of 26 patients with advanced stage HCC who received cabozantinib following progression on immunotherapy. The median age of patients was 61 years (range, 39 – 81) and the majority were male (85%). Eighteen (72%) patients had Child Pugh A at initiation of cabozantinib therapy. Four (15%) patients received cabozantinib as second line therapy, the rest received it as third line or later. PFS on cabozantinib was 2.1 months (95% CI: 1.3 – 3.9) and median overall survival from time of cabozantinib initiation was 7.7 months (95% CI: 5.3 – 14.9). PFS was shorter with Child Pugh Class B, 1.3 months (95% CI: 0.9 – NE) compared to those with Child Pugh Class A, 2.1 months (95% CI: 1.5 – 4); although this difference was not significant (p=0.55). Common adverse events included fatigue (50%), anorexia (35%), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) elevation (35%), and diarrhea (31%); 7 (26%) patients experienced Grade 3 or greater adverse events including hypertension, diarrhea, anorexia, and bowel obstruction. Two patients discontinued cabozantinib due to side effects including one for uncontrolled blood pressure elevations and the other due to fatigue. Conclusions: The optimal sequencing of therapy for patients with advanced HCC following progression on immunotherapy is unknown. Treatment with cabozantinib may improve clinical outcomes following progression on immunotherapy with similar adverse event profile. This study included patients with Child Pugh class B liver disease (28%) and heavily pretreated population and demonstrated mPFS and mOS similar to other work examining outcomes of cabozantinib in real world setting after progression on sorafenib. Further studies to determine optimal treatment sequencing for this patient population are needed.