Chemo-immunotherapy is the current first-line treatment for patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), but survival benefits are modest. The authors aimed to evaluate the safety, antitumor activity and biomarkers of first-line camrelizumab and apatinib plus chemotherapy in untreated ES-SCLC patients. In this single-arm trial (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05001412), eligible patients received 2 cycles of etoposide and carboplatin (EC) as induction treatment followed by 2–4 cycles of camrelizumab, apatinib plus EC, then maintenance camrelizumab plus apatinib. Primary endpoint was safety. Secondary endpoints included objective response rate (ORR), duration of response, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). Targeted sequencing and whole transcriptome sequencing were performed to explore biomarkers. All enrolled 40 patients were treated and analyzed for safety. During the entire treatment, treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) occurred in 40 patients (100%), and 30 (75.0%) were grade ≥3. The most common grade ≥3 TEAEs were neutropenia (35.0%), anemia (15.0%) and increased alanine aminotransferase (15.0%). No treatment-related deaths occurred. Among 36 evaluable patients, ORR was 88.9% (95% CI: 73.9%–96.9%), median PFS was 7.3 months (95% CI: 6.6–9.2) and median OS was 17.3 months (11.8-not reached). Mutations in RB1, high levels of tumor mutation burden, natural killer cells, and interferons, and low levels of cancer-associated fibroblasts, correlated with prolonged PFS. Induction chemotherapy followed by camrelizumab, apatinib plus EC demonstrated acceptable safety and promising antitumor activity in untreated ES-SCLC patients. The identified biomarkers need further validation.
Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
Observational study
People
Induction chemotherapy followed by camrelizumab plus apatinib and chemotherapy as first-line treatment for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer: a multicenter, single-arm trial
18-Feb-2025
The authors thank the patients and their families for their participation in this study, and also the study teams at each of the study sites. The authors thank Aichun Chen and Xinwen He for data interpretation, and You Tian for medical writing assistance, all from the Department of Medical Affairs, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. The authors thank Xinze Lv, Xiao Mi, Ting Hou, Guoqiang Wang, Zhou Zhang, and Shangli Cai for supporting data analysis, all from Burning Rock Biotech.