Impact of complete surgical resection on outcome in aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma treated with immunochemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: Surgical resection is considered to be of purely diagnostic value in aggressive lymphoma. Evidence for an impact on outcome is scant and restricted to retrospective observations. METHODS: In the "Positron Emission Tomography-guided Therapy of Aggressive non-Hodgkin Lymphomas" (PETAL) trial, patients with a negative baseline positron emission tomography (PET) scan were documented in a prospective observational substudy. Baseline PET-negative patients with the absence of lymph node enlargement on computed tomography and a negative bone marrow biopsy were considered to have undergone complete lymphoma resection. RESULTS: Eighty-two of 1,041 patients (7.9%) had a negative baseline PET scan, and 67 were included in this analysis. All were treated with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP), plus rituximab for CD20-positive lymphomas. Among 52 patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), 48 had completely resected disease. Their outcome tended to be better than that of 115 baseline PET-positive stage I DLBCL patients treated in the main part of the PETAL trial (2-year progression-free survival 92.7% [95% confidence interval 84.7-100] versus 88.4% [82.5-94.3], P = .056; 2-year overall survival 92.7% [84.7-100] versus 93.7% [89.2-98.2], P = .176), but this was restricted to patients below the age of 60 years (2-year progression-free survival 100% versus 92.2% [84.8-99.6], P = .031; 2-year overall survival 100% versus 95.9% [90.2-100], P = .075). In peripheral T-cell lymphoma, eight of 11 patients had completely resected disease. In contrast to DLBCL, complete resection was not associated with improved outcome compared to the control. CONCLUSION: Young patients with early stage DLBCL may benefit from complete lymphoma resection prior to immunochemotherapy.

Changes in Treatment Reality and Survival of Patients With Advanced Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma - Analyses From the German Clinical RCC-Registry.

INTRODUCTION: Because the treatment landscape for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) has evolved dramatically over the past decade, data on patients' treatment and outcomes in routine practice, so called "real-world data," are important to complement clinical trial data. We present choice of systemic first-/second-line treatments, number and sequences of treatment lines, and survival of patients with clear cell mRCC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 1085 patients with clear cell mRCC who were recruited at the start of first-line treatment into the prospective German clinical cohort study (RCC-Registry) by 122 sites between December 2007 and May 2017 were analyzed. RESULTS: The choice of first-/second-line treatment and changes over time reflect the chronologic approval of different targeted agents: from mainly tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), to TKIs/mechanistic target of rapamycin inhibitors, to now TKIs/mechanistic target of rapamycin inhibitors/checkpoint inhibitor. The median first-line overall survival ranged from 7.2 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.8-10.9 months) in high MSKCC (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) risk to 36.7 months (95% CI, 27.9-43.0 months) in low-risk patients. For trial-ineligible routine patients meeting common exclusion criteria of clinical trials, the median overall survival was 14.6 months (95% CI, 11.5-18.0 months) compared with 26.2 months (95% CI, 22.1-31.5 months) for potentially trial-eligible patients. CONCLUSION: This is the first prospective long-term cohort study showing changes in treatment reality and survival of routine patients with clear cell mRCC. Newly approved treatments are quickly applied in routine care. Patients with unfavorable prognosis, including trial-ineligible patients, have inferior outcomes. Survival times of potentially trial-eligible patients are similar to those reported from clinical trials.

Treatment, outcome and quality of life of 1239 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer - final results from the prospective German TLK cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: Real-life data on advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are centrally important to complement the results from clinical trials and to improve the standard of care. We present data on the choice of systemic first- and second-line treatment, number of treatment lines, survival and longitudinal data on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients treated by medical oncologists in Germany. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 1239 patients with advanced NSCLC were recruited at start of first-line therapy into the prospective German clinical cohort study TLK (Tumour Registry Lung Cancer) by 107 sites between February 2010 and December 2013 and followed-up until January 2016. HRQOL was assessed using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and LC13 questionnaires. RESULTS: Most patients receive carboplatin- or cisplatin-based doublet chemotherapy in first-line treatment. The choice of platinum agent did neither influence the outcome: median overall survival (OS) was 12.2 months for carboplatin combinations (95% confidence interval [CI] 10.0-13.8) and 11.9 months for cisplatin combinations (95% CI 10.2-13.8), nor did it have a marked impact on the HRQOL. Patients receiving cisplatin were younger and fitter at start of therapy than patients receiving carboplatin or mono-chemotherapy. The longitudinal HRQOL analysis revealed the main symptoms that need to be addressed in follow-up care, irrespective of the platinum agent: fatigue, nausea, dyspnoea and pain. The patients receiving targeted therapies with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) had a median OS of 22.1 months (95% CI 15.0-35.1) and considerably superior HRQOL. CONCLUSION: There was no difference in outcome between the platinum compounds cisplatin and carboplatin in first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC in routine care. This is the first report of longitudinal HRQOL data comparing treatments, showing no difference between carboplatin and cisplatin.