Therapy for Stage IV NSCLC With Driver Alterations: ASCO Living Guideline Update 2023.1 Part 2

Dr. Dwight Owen is back on the ASCO Guidelines podcast, discussing the latest updates to the ASCO living guidelines for stage IV NSCLC. In Part 2, Dr. Owen presents the update for stage IV NSCLC with driver alterations. He reviews new evidence from KRYSTAL-1, and reviews a new recommended option for patients with stage IV NSCLC with a KRAS G12C mutation, adagrasib.

Read the update, “Therapy for Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer With Driver Alterations: ASCO Living Guideline, Version 2023.1” and view all recommendations at www.asco.org/living-guidelines.

Listen to Part 1 for recommendations for patients with stage IV NSCLC without driver alterations.

TRANSCRIPT

This guideline, clinical tools, and resources are available at www.asco.org/living-guidelines. Read the full text of the guideline and review authors’ disclosures of potential conflicts of interest disclosures in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.23.00281 

Brittany Harvey: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Guidelines Podcast, one of ASCO’s podcasts delivering timely information to keep you up to date on the latest changes, challenges, and advances in oncology. You can find all the shows, including this one at asco.org/podcasts. 

My name is Brittany Harvey, and in our last episode, we addressed the living guideline updates for therapy for stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer without driver alterations. Dr. Dwight Owen from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, has joined us again to discuss the updates for therapy for stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer with driver alterations, as a co-chair on ‘Therapy for Stage IV Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer With Driver Alterations: ASCO Living Guideline, Version 2023.1’. 

Thank you for joining us again, Dr. Owen.

Dr. Dwight Owen: Thanks for having me, Brittany.

Brittany Harvey: Then, before we discuss this update, I'd just like to note that ASCO takes great care in the development of its guidelines and ensuring that the ASCO Conflict of Interest policy is followed for each guideline. The disclosures of potential conflicts of interest for the guideline panel, including Dr. Owen, who's joined us on this episode, are available online with the publication of the guideline in the Journal of Clinical Oncology linked in the show notes.  

So then, jumping into the content here, this living clinical practice guideline for systemic therapy for stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer with driver alterations is being routinely updated. What new studies were reviewed by the panel to prompt an update to the recommendations? 

Dr. Dwight Owen: Yeah. Thank you, Brittany. For this update, the panel and committee felt that it was important to review the KRYSTAL-1 trial. This was a phase I/II open-label study of adagrasib in patients with KRAS G12C mutation-positive solid tumors, which included multiple expansion cohorts, including a cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Importantly, the data that was presented in this recent publication included only patients treated at the phase II dose of 600 milligrams twice daily. The study included 160 patients with a primary endpoint of a response rate, which was evaluated in 112 of those patients. The confirmed response rate was 43%, including one complete response, with the remaining being partial responses. The median progression-free survival was six and a half months, and the median overall survival for this pretreated patient population was approaching one year. 

One thing of note is we saw similar toxicities as we have seen with other KRAS G12C inhibitors, which included predominantly GI side effects such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, but also hepatic side effects including transaminitis, some renal dysfunction as well. Dose interruption was common in over 60% of patients, and dose reduction was required in over half of patients. Overall, given the efficacy seen in this cohort, again, even though it was a phase I/II trial, it was a substantial number of patients, and we felt that it met the criteria for us to be able to include this as an additional recommendation in our guidelines.

Brittany Harvey: I appreciate you reviewing that data. So then, based off this data from KRYSTAL-1, you just mentioned that there's a new recommendation from the panel. So what is this new recommendation for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with a KRAS G12C mutation?

Dr. Dwight Owen: For patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer with KRAS G12C who have received prior treatment with a chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy with a PD-1 therapy, we have added that clinicians and oncologists may consider treatment with adagrasib to our current recommendations for these patients.

Brittany Harvey: Great. And then you just mentioned this is an addition onto current recommendations. So what should clinicians know as they implement this updated recommendation, and how does it fit in with those previous recommendations for patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer with a KRAS mutation?

Dr. Dwight Owen: That's a really important point, is this is now our second option for these patients, including sotorasib, which many of us have been familiar with so far. Of course, we don't have a head-to-head trial comparing these two, but looking at the efficacy and toxicity data, they do seem quite similar. We have some more data for sotorasib from the CodeBreaK 200 study, which we'll be reviewing in a future update. However, at this point, looking at the monotherapy studies that have been done, the toxicity profiles seem fairly similar, the efficacy profiles seem fairly similar, so we don't yet have a clear differentiator that we can see, again, in the absence of a head study. 

The other thing I would note is that the inclusion criteria for these studies, for the most part, excluded patients with active brain metastases, which, unfortunately, is something that we see quite commonly in patients with lung cancer. And although we have seen some case reports and some anecdotal data for CNS activity with these compounds, we're still waiting for defined cohorts, which there were defined cohorts in these studies that included patients with asymptomatic but untreated brain metastases. And I think that will be something that we are actively looking for and looking forward to. Because I think having a better understanding of potential CNS activity of either or both of these compounds would really alleviate a lot of concerns that we have that those patients who really are the patients that we see in clinic were just not represented in the studies that we reviewed to date. 

Brittany Harvey: Understood. I appreciate that additional context around these recommendations. 

So what does this new therapeutic option mean for patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer with a KRAS G12C mutation? 

Dr. Dwight Owen: The end result is that we have more treatment options for patients. Again, both of these compounds seem active. There are clearly patients who benefit and, in some cases, for a substantial period of time because of these options, which were not available as of just recently and until the very recent past, KRAS was, of course, considered an undruggable target. So it's really incredible that we have these treatment options and that they're coming to clinic so quickly. I think there are some areas that we still don't understand yet in terms of the sequencing of treatment. Right now, these treatments are only approved as a subsequent treatment. In most of the studies, the vast majority of patients had received both chemotherapy and immunotherapy. We don't really know how that sequence might affect the tolerability or efficacy of the KRAS inhibitors. We do know that toxicity is an issue, and with both agents, dose reductions are frequently utilized to try to assist with tolerability. There is a slight difference in terms of how these are administered, whether it's daily with a higher pill burden versus twice daily. 

And so there are some nuances that clinicians can discuss with patients. But again, absent a

head-to-head study, it's really important to have a discussion with your patient about what the toxicity profiles of these agents are and what the likelihood of benefit is. And we look forward to seeing more data as these get combined with other therapies and potentially have more insight into the optimal sequence of therapies for patients with KRAS G12C non-small cell lung cancer.

Brittany Harvey: Absolutely. It's great to have additional treatment options for patients, and those are key points for discussions about personalized therapeutic regimens. So then, finally, are there emerging therapies or targets that the panel is considering for future living guideline updates? 

Dr. Dwight Owen: As I mentioned in the last podcast, the data coming out is happening so quickly that we are working to make sure that the guidelines are as up-to-date as possible based on the most recent published literature where we can actually take time to delve into the data and be transparent about the evidence based from our recommendations. We are very interested in the subsequent studies in the KRAS G12C pathway. I mentioned the CodeBreaK 200 study that we’d be including in a future publication, as well as in some of the emerging data in KRAS non G12C non-small cell lung cancer. 

As of now, it's very important to keep in mind that the only inhibitors we have are dependent on the G12C on the cysteine, and therefore those are the only patients that are currently able to benefit from these treatments. But in the future, we hope that that patient cohort becomes expanded, and we continue looking for new therapies for patients with other alterations, including subsequent therapies for EGFR non-small cell lung cancer and, of course, other actionable alterations as well.

Brittany Harvey: That's great to hear. We'll look forward to that future research and the review of that evidence by the panel and future guideline updates. 

So thank you so much for your work on these updates and thank you for your time today, Dr. Owen. 

Dr. Dwight Owen: Thanks very much, Brittany.

Brittany Harvey: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to the ASCO Guidelines Podcast series. To read the full guideline, go to www.asco.org/living-guidelines. There's a companion living guideline update on therapy for stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer without driver alterations available there and in the JCO. You can also find many of our guidelines and interactive resources in the newly redesigned ASCO Guidelines app, available for free in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. 

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