Perioperative durvalumab in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer

New data from the MATTERHORN trial, recently published on The New England Journal of Medicine,  showed that perioperative durvalumab plus FLOT chemotherapy (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel) led to significantly better event-free survival outcomes than FLOT alone among participants with resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

For this randomized study 474 participants were assigned to the durvalumab group and 474 to the placebo group. After a median folluw-up of 31,5 months, the 2-years event-free survival rate was 67.4% among the participants in the durvalumab group and 58.5% among those in the placebo group; 2-years overall survival was 75.7% in the durvalumab group and 70.4% in the placebo group and the percentage of participants with a pathological complete response was 19.2% and 7.2% respectively. Adverse events with a maximum grade of 3 or higher were similar, as well as the percentage of participants with delayed surgery; the percentage with delayed initiation of adjuvant treatment was 2.3% in the durvalumab group and 4.6% in the placebo group. «Perioperative durvalumab plus FLOT chemotherapy was associated with significantly better event-free survival outcomes than placebo plus FLOT. No new safety signals were observed. These findings support the use of perioperative durvalumab combined with FLOT as a potential first-line treatment for patients with resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma», authors conclude.