Nivolumab in Patients with Advanced Platinum-resistant Urothelial Carcinoma: Efficacy, Safety, and Biomarker Analyses with Extended Follow-up from CheckMate 275

Abstract Purpose: We report efficacy and safety with extended follow-up, and exploratory biomarker analyses from the phase II CheckMate 275 trial to identify biomarkers of response to nivolumab in platinum-resistant metastatic or unresectable urothelial carcinoma (mUC). Patients and Methods: Patients received nivolumab 3 mg/kg once every 2 weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or other protocol-defined reasons. The primary endpoint was objective response rate (ORR) per blinded independent review committee (BIRC; using RECIST v1.1) in all treated patients and by tumor PD-L1 expression. Key secondary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS) per BIRC using RECIST v1.1 and overall survival (OS) in all patients and by PD-L1 expression. Exploratory endpoints included safety and biomarker analyses of tumor mutational burden (TMB), PD-L1, and previously identified mutational signatures. Results: Of 270 treated patients, 139 had evaluable TMB. With 33.7 months' minimum follow-up, ORR per BIRC, median PFS, and median OS [95% confidence interval (CI)] in all treated patients were 20.7% (16.1–26.1), 1.9 months (1.9–2.3), and 8.6 months (6.1–11.3), respectively. No new safety signals were identified. Higher TMB was associated (P < 0.05) with improved ORR [OR (95% CI): 2.13 (1.26–3.60)], PFS [HR: 0.75 (0.61–0.92)], and OS [HR: 0.73 (0.58–0.91)]. TMB combined with PD-L1 better predicted ORR, PFS, and OS than PD-L1 alone. Higher mutational signature 2 score was associated with better OS but did not improve the predictive value of TMB. Conclusions: These results support the durable antitumor activity of nivolumab and suggest that TMB may enrich for better response in mUC. Future studies of TMB/PD-L1 as biomarkers for response to nivolumab in randomized trials are warranted. See related commentary by Swami et al., p. 5059