» Articles » PMID: 39266535

Results from the Randomized KEYNOTE-355 Study of Pembrolizumab Plus Chemotherapy for Asian Patients with Advanced TNBC

Abstract

In the phase 3 KEYNOTE-355 study (NCT02819518), pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) versus placebo plus chemotherapy among patients with previously untreated locally recurrent inoperable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 tumors. We analyzed outcomes for the subgroup of patients enrolled in Asia in KEYNOTE-355. Patients received pembrolizumab 200 mg or placebo (2:1 randomization) every 3 weeks for 35 cycles plus investigator's choice chemotherapy. Primary endpoints were PFS per Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 and OS. Among patients enrolled in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan (pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy, n = 113; placebo plus chemotherapy, n = 47), 117 (73.1%) had PD-L1 CPS ≥ 1 and 56 (35.0%) had PD-L1 CPS ≥ 10. Median time from randomization to data cutoff (June 15, 2021) was 43.8 (range, 36.8‒53.2) months (intent-to-treat [ITT] population). Hazard ratios (HRs [95% CI]) for PFS in the CPS ≥ 10, CPS ≥ 1, and ITT populations were 0.48 (0.24‒0.98), 0.58 (0.37‒0.91), and 0.66 (0.44‒0.99), respectively. Corresponding HRs (95% CI) for OS were 0.54 (0.28‒1.04), 0.62 (0.40‒0.97), and 0.57 (0.39‒0.84). Grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse events (AEs) occurred in 77.9% versus 78.7% of patients with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus placebo plus chemotherapy. No grade 5 AEs occurred. Clinically meaningful improvement in PFS and OS with manageable toxicity were observed with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus placebo plus chemotherapy in patients enrolled in Asia with previously untreated, inoperable or metastatic TNBC.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02819518.

References
1.
Gatalica Z, Snyder C, Maney T, Ghazalpour A, Holterman D, Xiao N . Programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1) in common cancers and their correlation with molecular cancer type. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2014; 23(12):2965-70. DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-14-0654. View

2.
Schmid P, Adams S, Rugo H, Schneeweiss A, Barrios C, Iwata H . Atezolizumab and Nab-Paclitaxel in Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2018; 379(22):2108-2121. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1809615. View

3.
Loi S, Michiels S, Salgado R, Sirtaine N, Jose V, Fumagalli D . Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes are prognostic in triple negative breast cancer and predictive for trastuzumab benefit in early breast cancer: results from the FinHER trial. Ann Oncol. 2014; 25(8):1544-50. DOI: 10.1093/annonc/mdu112. View

4.
Nanda R, Chow L, Dees E, Berger R, Gupta S, Geva R . Pembrolizumab in Patients With Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Phase Ib KEYNOTE-012 Study. J Clin Oncol. 2016; 34(21):2460-7. PMC: 6816000. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2015.64.8931. View

5.
Nagahashi M, Ling Y, Hayashida T, Kitagawa Y, Futamura M, Yoshida K . Actionable gene alterations in an Asian population with triple-negative breast cancer. JCO Precis Oncol. 2020; 2. PMC: 7288901. DOI: 10.1200/po.17.00211. View