Safety, immunogenicity, and clinical efficacy of durvalumab in combination with folate receptor alpha vaccine TPIV200 in patients with advanced ovarian cancer: A phase II trial Journal Article


Authors: Zamarin, D.; Walderich, S.; Holland, A.; Zhou, Q.; Iasonos, A. E.; Torrisi, J. M.; Merghoub, T.; Chesebrough, L. F.; Mcdonnell, A. S.; Gallagher, J. M.; Li, Y.; Hollmann, T. J.; Grisham, R. N.; Erskine, C. L.; Block, M. S.; Knutson, K. L.; O'Cearbhaill, R. E.; Aghajanian, C.; Konner, J. A.
Article Title: Safety, immunogenicity, and clinical efficacy of durvalumab in combination with folate receptor alpha vaccine TPIV200 in patients with advanced ovarian cancer: A phase II trial
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) to date have demonstrated limited activity in advanced ovarian cancer (OC). Folate receptor alpha (FRα) is overexpressed in the majority of OCs and presents an attractive target for a combination immunotherapy to potentially overcome resistance to ICI in OCs. The current study sought to examine clinical and immunologic responses to TPIV200, a multiepitope FRα vaccine administered with programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab in patients with advanced platinum-resistant OC. METHODS: Following Simon two-stage phase II trial design, 27 patients were enrolled. Treatment was administered in 28-day cycles (intradermal TPIV200 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) for 6 cycles and intravenous durvalumab for 12 cycles). Primary endpoints included overall response rate and progression-free survival at 24 weeks. Translational parameters focused on tumor microenvironment, PD-L1 and FRα expression, and peripheral vaccine-specific immune responses. RESULTS: Treatment was well tolerated, with related grade 3 toxicity rate of 18.5%. Increased T cell responses to the majority of peptides were observed in all patients at 6 weeks (p<0.0001). There was one unconfirmed partial response (3.7%) and nine patients had stable disease (33.3%). Clinical benefit was not associated with baseline FRα or PD-L1 expression. One patient with prolonged clinical benefit demonstrated loss of FRα expression and upregulation of PD-L1 in a progressing lesion. Despite the low overall response rate, the median overall survival was 21 months (13.5-∞), with evidence of benefit from postimmunotherapy regimens. CONCLUSIONS: Combination of TPIV200 and durvalumab was safe and elicited robust FRα-specific T cell responses in all patients. Unexpectedly durable survival in this heavily pretreated population highlights the need to investigate the impact of FRα vaccination on the OC biology post-treatment. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
Keywords: antigens, neoplasm; clinical trials, phase ii as topic; programmed cell death 1 receptor; immunogenicity, vaccine
Journal Title: Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
Volume: 8
Issue: 1
ISSN: 2051-1426
Publisher: Biomed Central Ltd  
Date Published: 2020-01-01
Start Page: e000829
Language: English
DOI: 10.1136/jitc-2020-000829
PUBMED: 32503949
PROVIDER: scopus
PMCID: PMC7279674
DOI/URL:
Notes: Article -- Export Date: 1 July 2020 -- Source: Scopus
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MSK Authors
  1. Jean Marie Torrisi
    16 Torrisi
  2. Taha Merghoub
    364 Merghoub
  3. Jason Konner
    155 Konner
  4. Dmitriy Zamarin
    201 Zamarin
  5. Qin Zhou
    253 Zhou
  6. Alexia Elia Iasonos
    362 Iasonos
  7. Rachel Nicole Grisham
    169 Grisham
  8. Yanyun Li
    44 Li
  9. Travis Jason Hollmann
    126 Hollmann
  10. Aliya Rose Ming Holland
    18 Holland