Nicolas Girard, MD, on the Safety Profile of Nivolumab Plus Chemotherapy in Resectable NSCLC

Nicolas Girard, MD, professor of respiratory medicine at Versailles Saint Quentin University and head of Curie-Montsouris Thorax Institute of Institut Curie in Paris, spoke with CancerNetwork® during the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2022 Annual Meeting regarding the updated safety findings with nivolumab (Opdivo) and chemotherapy in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer.

Across both respective groups, the most common grade 3/4 adverse effects (AEs) were neutropenia (8.5% vs 11.9%) and decreased neutrophil count (7.4% vs 10.8%). Additionally, 10.2% of patients in the experimental arm and 9.7% of patients in the control arm discontinued treatment due to treatment-related AEs (TRAEs).

Transcript:

We did not identify a signal of additional toxicities with the addition of nivolumab to chemotherapy; [the] same [went] for surgical complications. Only 10.2% of patients discontinued both neoadjuvant treatment because of TRAEs. With regard to surgical complications, there are actually [fewer] adverse events in the experimental arm. This is probably because the duration of neoadjuvant treatment is limited to 3 cycles, [therefore] it’s unlikely that we have severe toxicities in those patients.

Reference

Forde PM, Spicer J, Lu S, et al. CheckMate 816 Investigators. Neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy in resectable lung cancer. N Engl J Med. Published online April 11, 2022. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2202170