Assessment of the association of the VeriStrat test with outcomes in patients (pts) with advanced pancreatic cancer (PC) treated with gemcitabine (G) with or without erlotinib (E) in the NCIC CTG PA.3 phase III trial.
4061 Background: VeriStrat is a mass spectrometry based assay performed on serum or plasma that has been shown to be prognostic in several tumor types, and may predict differential drug benefit in several settings. We investigated the association of VeriStrat with outcomes in the NCIC CTG PA.3 randomized phase III trial of G and E vs. G and placebo (P) in pts with advanced PC. Methods: Pre-treatment plasma samples were available for 499/569 (87.7%) enrolled pts. VeriStrat testing was performed in a CLIA-certified laboratory; pts were classified as either Good, Poor, or indeterminate. The relationship between VeriStrat results and overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) was assessed by Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank test in univariate analysis and Cox model adjusting for gender, age [>60 vs. ≤60], race [Caucasian vs. other], ECOG [0-1 vs. 2], and pain intensity at baseline [≤20 vs. >20] in multivariate analysis. The predictive effect was assessed by interaction test. All statistical analyses were performed by the NCIC CTG. Results: Of the 499 samples, 11 were hemolyzed and 4 had acquisition failures. VeriStrat was performed on 484 samples, 9 failed quality control, 22 had indeterminate results. Of the remaining 452, 353 (78%) were classified as Good and 99 (22%) as Poor. In the G and P arm, median OS was 7.16 months (ms) for VeriStrat Good vs. 3.78ms for VeriStrat Poor (p<0.0001); Adjusted Hazard Ratio (AHR) 0.59 (0.43-0.82), p=0.002. In the G and E arm, median OS was 7.33ms for VeriStrat Good vs. 4.50ms for VeriStrat Poor p<0.0001; AHR 0.47 (0.32-0.70), p=0.001. A similar relationship was seen for PFS (G and P arm: median PFS 3.91 vs. 2.07ms (p=0.001); AHR 0.67 [0.49-0.92], p=0.01); G and E arm: median PFS 4.24 vs. 2.86ms (p=0.0004); AHR 0.54 [0.37-0.80], p=0.002). Tests of interaction of VeriStrat status and treatment for OS and PFS were not significant: AHR 0.78 (0.48-1.25), p=0.30 and AHR 0.80 (0.50-1.30), p=0.37 respectively. Conclusions: VeriStrat results were significantly associated with OS and PFS for both regimens in this study. VeriStrat was not predictive of benefit from the addition of E to G.