Tumor mutational burden as a predictive biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitor versus taxane chemotherapy benefit in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer: A real-world biomarker study.
Authors: Nicolas Sayegh, Ryon Graf, Virginia Fisher, Janick Weberpals, Richard S.P. Huang, Douglas I. Lin, Ole Gjoerup, Kira Raskina, Eric Allan Severson, James Haberberger, Jeffrey S. Ross, Brian Michael Alexander, Mia Alyce Levy, Geoffrey R. Oxnard, Neeraj Agarwal
Journal: Journal of Clinical Oncology (2022)

162 Background: The most useful biomarkers for clinical decision-making identify patients likely to have improved outcomes on one treatment vs. another. To date, no study has compared the treatment class-specific outcomes of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) on Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor (ICPI) vs. taxane chemotherapy by tumor mutational burden (TMB, mutations/megabase). Methods: Association of genomic data with clinical variables and outcomes in cohort of patients with mCRPC treated January 2011- April 2021. Longitudinal de-identified clinical data from ̃280 U.S. academic or community-based cancer clinics were derived from electronic health records, curated via technology-enabled abstraction by Flatiron Health and linked to genomic testing by Foundation Medicine (FoundationOne or FoundationOne CDx assays). 45 patients (14 with TMB ≥ 10, 31 TMB &lt; 10) received single-agent anti-PD1 axis ICPI, 696 (30 with TMB ≥ 10, 666 TMB &lt; 10) received single-agent taxanes, at discretion of physician without randomization. For time to next therapy (TTNT) and overall survival (OS) assessments, imbalances between treatment groups were adjusted with propensity weighting. Results: Overall cohort: Median age: 70 (IQR: 64 – 76), median PSA: 79.4 (IQR: 19.0 – 254), 108 (18.8%) were ECOG 2+, 644 (86.9%) had received prior systemic treatments for mCRPC. Patients receiving ICPI vs. taxanes had comparable pre-therapy age, PSA, hemoglobin, alkaline phosphatase, prior second generation novel hormonal therapy use, and prior opioid use, but higher TMB (median 3.5, IQR: 1.7 – 15 vs. median 2.5, IQR 1.3 – 3.8, p &lt; 0.001), higher ECOG scores (0, 1, 2+ respectively 13.9%, 55.6%, 30.6% vs. 29.4%, 52.6%, 18.8%, p = 0.057), and greater prior taxane use (73.3% vs. 53.7%, p = 0.01). Among patients with evaluable PSA response, no difference was observed on taxanes by TMB level. No patients had PSA decline ≥ 50% on ICPI if TMB &lt; 10, 4 of 9 with TMB ≥ 10 had PSA decline ≥ 50%. TMB &lt; 10 receiving ICPI vs. taxanes had worse TTNT (median 2.4 vs. 4.1 months; HR: 2.7, 95%CI: 1.7 – 4.0, p &lt; 0.001) and numerically worse OS (median 4.2 vs. 6.0 months, HR: 1.08; 95%CI: 0.68– 1.7, p = 0.73). In contrast, for TMB ≥ 10 ICPI vs. taxane use was associated with more favorable TTNT (median 8.0 vs. 2.4 months; HR: 0.37, 95%CI: 0.15 – 0.87, p = 0.022) and OS (median 19.9 vs. 4.2 months; HR: 0.23, 95%CI: 0.10 – 0.57, p = 0.0085). Among all 741 patients, 44 had TMB ≥ 10, 22 had high microsatellite instability (MSI-H), 20 had both. Treatment interactions with TMB ≥ 10 (TTNT: p &lt; 0.001, OS: p = 0.021) were stronger than MSI-H (TTNT: p = 0.0038, OS: p = 0.080). Conclusions: The results suggest ICPI may be a viable alternative to taxane chemotherapy for patients with mCRPC with TMB ≥ 10, adding validity to existing FDA approved platform and pan-tumor TMB score cutoff of 10.