Checkpoint inhibitors have been shown to have limited activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. We aimed to determine whether a single dose of lutetium-177 [177Lu]-prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-617 (177Lu-PSMA-617) followed by maintenance pembrolizumab was safe and could induce durable clinical benefit.
We did an open-label, dose-expansion, phase 1 study at the University of California, San Francisco (San Fransisco, CA, USA). Eligible patients were men aged 18 years or older with progressive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, had progression on one or more androgen signalling inhibitors, and at least three PSMA-avid lesions on 68Ga-PSMA-11 positron emission tomography. In part A, patients were enrolled sequentially to one of three schedules in which a single dose of 177Lu-PSMA-617 (7·4 GBq) was given intravenously 28 days before (schedule 1), concomitant with (schedule 2), or 21 days after (schedule 3) the start of maintenance intravenous pembrolizumab (200 mg every 3 weeks). In part B, 25 patients were enrolled using the recommended phase 2 schedule. The primary endpoint in part A was determination of the recommended phase 2 schedule, and in part B, the objective response rate. The analysis set included all patients who received at least one dose of pembrolizumab or 177Lu-PSMA-617. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03805594.
Between Aug 8, 2019 and May 7, 2022, 43 male patients were enrolled (n=18 part A [six patients per schedule]; n=25 part B), with a median follow-up of 16·5 months (IQR 12·2-21·9). Schedule 1 was selected as the recommended phase 2 schedule for part B, on the basis of safety and feasibility of administration observed in part A. In part B, 14 (56%; 95% CI 35-76) of 25 patients had a confirmed objective response. Two (5%) of 43 patients had a treatment-related adverse event of grade 3 or worse (grade 3 arthritis in schedule 2, grade 3 pneumonitis in schedule 3). One serious adverse event (one death due to aspiration pneumonia) and no treatment-related deaths were observed.
A single priming dose of 177Lu-PSMA-617 followed by pembrolizumab maintenance was safe and had encouraging preliminary activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
Prostate Cancer Foundation, National Cancer Institute, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and Merck.
The Lancet. Oncology. 2023 Nov [Epub]
Rahul Aggarwal, Stephanie Starzinski, Ivan de Kouchkovsky, Vadim Koshkin, Rohit Bose, Jonathan Chou, Arpita Desai, Daniel Kwon, Samuel Kaushal, Lauren Trihy, Medini Rastogi, Robin Ippisch, Maya Aslam, Terence Friedlander, Felix Feng, David Oh, Alexander Cheung, Eric Small, Michael Evans, Lawrence Fong, Thomas A Hope
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. Electronic address: ., Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA., Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.