PARAMOUNT: Final overall survival (OS) results of the phase III study of maintenance pemetrexed (pem) plus best supportive care (BSC) versus placebo (plb) plus BSC immediately following induction treatment with pem plus cisplatin (cis) for advanced nonsquamous (NS) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Abstract

LBA7507 Background: The PARAMOUNT trial showed that pem continuation maintenance therapy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression over plb (HR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.49-0.79; p <0.0001) in patients (pts) with advanced NS NSCLC who had not progressed during pem-cis induction. Here we present the final OS data. Methods: In a double-blind, plb-controlled study, alpha-controlled for OS, 939 pts received induction (4 cycles of pem 500 mg/m 2 and cis 75 mg/m 2 on d1 of 21d cycles), and 539 pts who had not progressed and had an ECOG performance status (PS) of 0/1 were randomized (2:1) to maintenance pem (500 mg/m 2 , on day 1 of 21-day cycles) plus BSC or plb plus BSC until disease progression. All received B 12 , folic acid, and dexamethasone. After 397 deaths, a log-rank test compared OS between arms using anominal α level of 0.0498. Results: Pt characteristics were balanced between arms: median age 61 years; 58% men; 32% PS 0; 95% Caucasian; 86% adenocarcinoma; 45% complete/partial response (CR/PR) to induction. Pem resulted in a statistically significant 22% reduction in risk of death (HR=0.78). The HR was the same when measured from the beginning of induction. Survival improvement was similar for pts with an induction outcome of CR/PR versus stable disease. Conclusions: Pem continuation maintenance therapy offers superior OS compared with plb. These final results confirm that pem-cis induction followed by continuation pem further benefits pts compared with induction therapy alone, offering a change in the treatment paradigm for advanced NS NSCLC. [Table: see text]