Nivolumab Associated With Improved HRQoL vs Everolimus in Advanced RCC

Nivolumab was associated with improved quality of life compared with everolimus in patients with previously treated renal cell carcinoma (RCC), an analysis of the CheckMate 025 study published in The Lancet Oncology has shown.¹

CheckMate 025 was an open-label, phase 3 trial that enrolled 821 patients with previously treated advanced RCC from 146 centers in 24 countries. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive nivolumab every 2 weeks or everolimus once daily. At interim analysis, researchers found that nivolumab was associated with improved overall survival, and the study was stopped early.

Health-related quality of life was evaluated with the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Kidney Symptom Index-Disease Related Symptoms (FKSI-DRS) and European Quality of Life (EuroQol)-5 Dimensions (EQ-5D) questionnaires. 88% of nivolumab-treated patients and 84% of those in the everolimus group completed the questionnaires.

Results showed that the average difference in FKSI-DRS scores between the nivolumab and everolimus arms was 1.6 (95% CI, 1.4-1.9; P < .0001). FKSI-DRS score indicated that more patients had a clinically meaningful improvement in health-related quality of life with nivolumab (55%) vs everolimus (37%; P < .0001).

Researchers found that median time to health-related quality of life improvement was 4.7 months (95% CI, 3.7-7.5); the median time had not yet been reached in the everolimus group.                                      

Reference

1. Cella D, Grunwalkd V, Nathan P, Doan J, Dastani H, Taylor F, et al. Quality of life in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma given nivolumab versus everolimus in CheckMate 025: a randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(16)30125-5.