Abstract 7162: Killing a fly with a sledgehammer: standard flat-dosing administration of Atezolizumab leads to marked overexposure in real-world lung cancer patients
Authors: Marolleau Sophie , Mogenet Alice , Hamimed Mourad , Boeri Clara , Greillier Laurent , Ciccolini Joseph 
Published: March 2024

Atezolizumab is an anti-PDL1 approved for treating small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancers. A threshold of 6 µg/ml in plasma has been associated with target engagement with Atezolizumab. The extent to which patients could be overexposed with the standard 1200 mg Q3W flat-dosing remains unknown, but several in silico studies have suggested that flat-dosing with immune checkpoint inhibitors could lead to plasma concentrations far above the necessary levels to be efficacious. Here, we monitored Atezolizumab peak and trough levels in 27 real-world patients with lung cancer as part of routine therapeutic drug monitoring. Individual pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated using a population approach and optimal dosing-intervals were simulated with respect to the target trough levels of Atezolizumab. No patient displayed plasma levels below 6 µg/ml. The results showed that the mean trough level after the first course was 78.3 ± 17 µg/ml, i.e., 13 times above the target concentration associated with target engagement. The overall response rate was 55.5%. Low-grade IRAEs was observed in 37% of patients. No severe immune-related toxicities was observed. On univariate analysis, no relationship was found between exposure metrics of Atezolizumab (i.e., Cmin, Cmax, AUC at the first cycle or during the forthcoming courses) and pharmacodynamic endpoints (i.e., efficacy, toxicity). First-line Atezolizumab treatment and treatment for NSCLC were both significantly associated with efficacy on univariate analysis (p=0.0067 and p=0.0497, respectively), but further multivariate analysis did not confirm this relationship (p=0.2465 and p=0.9981). Smoking status was moderately associated with toxicities on univariate analysis (p=0.03), but this effect was not confirmed on further multivariate analysis (p=0.99). None of the other covariates (i.e., age, sex, NLR, number of metastatic sites, associated chemotherapy) were associated with efficacy or toxicity. Further simulations suggested that the dosing interval could be extended from the standard 21 days (i.e., Q3W) to 49 up to 136 days (mean: 85.7 days, i.e., Q12W dosing), while ensuring plasma levels always above the 6 µg/ml target threshold. This observational, real-world study confirms for the first time in real-world patients that the standard 1200 mg Q3W fixed-dose regimen of Atezolizumab results in significant overexposure in plasma. Of note, this overexposure was not associated with increased side-effects. As plasma levels always exceed pharmacologically active concentrations, the inter-individual variability we observed in PK parameters did not impact efficacy and could not explain differences in response. Our data suggest that dosing intervals could be markedly extended with respect to the target threshold associated with efficacy, thus lowering drug-cost in the future.

Citation Format: Sophie Marolleau, Alice Mogenet, Mourad Hamimed, Clara Boeri, Laurent Greillier, Joseph Ciccolini. Killing a fly with a sledgehammer: standard flat-dosing administration of Atezolizumab leads to marked overexposure in real-world lung cancer patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 7162.