The impact of antibiotic (Ab) exposure on clinical outcomes in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) or VEGF targeted therapy (VEGF-TT).

Abstract

4552 Background: Retrospective studies have shown an association between Ab exposure and inferior clinical outcomes in patients receiving ICI across various tumor types, including mRCC. However, it is unclear whether Ab exposure has a unique interaction with ICI or is an independent prognostic marker, regardless of treatment. We sought to examine Ab exposure and its association with clinical outcomes in patients with mRCC treated with ICI compared to VEGF-TT. Methods: We identified patients treated with ICI (anti-PD-L1 alone or in combination with VEGF or CTLA4 inhibitor) or VEGF-TT alone in first to fourth line settings from 2009-2020 across 3 academic centers in North America. Ab exposure was defined as administration of Ab within 60 days prior to initiation of systemic therapy. Outcomes of interest were response rate (RR), time to treatment failure (TTF) and overall survival (OS). Multivariable Cox regression was performed to control for imbalances in International mRCC Database Consortium (IMDC) risk factors, histology, and treatment line. Results: We identified 748 patients. Among the ICI (n=427) and VEGF-TT (n=321) cohorts, 13% vs 15% (p=0.47) had Ab exposure and 57% vs 48% (p=0.046) were treated in the first line setting. The proportion of favorable, intermediate, and poor risk disease by IMDC criteria differed between Ab exposed and unexposed patients in the ICI (14% vs 18%, 47% vs 62%, 39% vs 21% p=0.03) and VEGF-TT (7% vs 13%, 43% vs 60%, 50% vs 27%, p=0.01) cohorts. RR, TTF and OS results are displayed in Table 1. Multivariable analysis did not show a significant independent association between Ab exposure and OS in both the ICI (HR 1.13, p=0.62) and VEGF-TT (HR 1.32, p=0.16) cohorts. Treatment modality (ICI vs VEGF-TT) did not modify the effect of Ab exposure on OS (p=0.84). Conclusions: Ab exposure was associated with higher IMDC risk scores in both the ICI and VEGF-TT cohorts as well as inferior OS on univariable analysis. After adjusting for IMDC risk factors, histology and treatment line, we were unable to find an independent association between Ab exposure and OS in multivariable analysis for either cohort.[Table: see text]