Phase II trial of neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy (NAC) in prostate cancer (PC) with response assessment using PSMA PET/MRI.

Abstract

334 Background: Previous studies have shown that addition of docetaxel to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly improves progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive PC. Removal of the primary may also improve outcomes by reducing tumor self-seeding. We are conducting a phase II trial in men with PC to examine the feasibility of NAC, response using PSMA PET/MRI imaging and molecular mechanisms of resistance. Methods: This is an open-label, single-arm trial. Thirty patients with newly diagnosed very high risk localized, locally advanced or oligometastatic PC will receive ADT/docetaxel for three cycles before prostatectomy. The primary endpoint is rate of complete pathologic response. Key secondary objectives include PSA recurrence at month 12 after surgery. Exploratory objectives include tumor response and response heterogeneity in primary and metastatic tumors before and after treatment assessed by PSMA PET/MRI and evaluation of gene expression signatures in cancer cells, prostate stroma, bone marrow microenvironment and circulating tumor cells. Results: To date, 26 of 30 patients have enrolled and completed treatment. Mean age was 61 and mean PSA at time of diagnosis was 32.1 ng/dl. All patients had multi-focal prostate cancer with 23/26 patients with Gleason Grade Group 5. Metastatic disease by conventional imaging was identified in 6/26 patients (5 in lymph nodes [LN] and bone, 1 in LN only). Treatment was overall well tolerated. All patients had multi-focal primary prostate cancer detected on PSMA PET/MRI. All patients had a decline in PSMA PET SUVmax in at least one intraprostatic lesion. Two patients had an increase in SUVmax in at least one intraprostatic lesion that correlated with a resistant tumor focus on histopathology. Conclusions: NAC prior to surgery generates high rates of local tumor control with a heterogeneous response between foci. Primary resistance, identified by increasing PSMA PET SUVmax, is uncommon, however incomplete responses were observed in nearly all patients, suggesting that more cycles of treatment would improve response. PSMA PET/MRI can be used to monitor response and resistance in PC. Clinical trial information: NCT03358563.