Perioperative Durvalumab in Gastric and Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer - PubMed (original) (raw)

Clinical Trial

. 2025 Jul 17;393(3):217-230.

doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2503701. Epub 2025 Jun 1.

Salah-Eddin Al-Batran 2, Zev A Wainberg 3, Kei Muro 4, Daniela Molena 5, Eric Van Cutsem 6, Woo Jin Hyung 7, Lucjan Wyrwicz 8, Do-Youn Oh 9, Takeshi Omori 10, Markus Moehler 11, Marcelo Garrido 12, Sulene C S Oliveira 13, Moishe Liberman 14, Victor Castro Oliden 15, Elizabeth C Smyth 16, Alexander Stein 17, Mehmet Bilici 18, Maria Lorena Alvarenga 19, Vadim Kozlov 20, Fernando Rivera 21, Akihito Kawazoe 22, Olivier Serrano 23, Eric Heilbron 24, Alejandra Negro 24, John F Kurland 24, Josep Tabernero 25; MATTERHORN Investigators

Collaborators, Affiliations

Clinical Trial

Perioperative Durvalumab in Gastric and Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer

Yelena Y Janjigian et al. N Engl J Med. 2025.

Abstract

Background: Perioperative FLOT (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel) is a standard therapy for resectable gastric and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinomas, but recurrence rates remain high. Immunotherapy plus chemotherapy may improve outcomes.

Methods: In a phase 3, multinational, double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned participants with resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, in a 1:1 ratio, to receive durvalumab at a dose of 1500 mg or placebo every 4 weeks plus FLOT for 4 cycles (2 cycles each of neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy), followed by durvalumab or placebo every 4 weeks for 10 cycles. The primary end point was event-free survival; secondary end points included overall survival and pathological complete response.

Results: A total of 474 participants were randomly assigned to the durvalumab group, and 474 to the placebo group (median follow-up, 31.5 months; interquartile range, 26.7 to 36.6). Two-year event-free survival (Kaplan-Meier estimate) was 67.4% among the participants in the durvalumab group and 58.5% among those in the placebo group (hazard ratio for event or death, 0.71; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.58 to 0.86; P<0.001). Two-year overall survival was 75.7% in the durvalumab group and 70.4% in the placebo group (piecewise hazard ratio for death during months 0 to 12, 0.99 [95% CI, 0.70 to 1.39], and during the period from month 12 onward, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.50 to 0.90]; P = 0.03 by a stratified log-rank test [exceeding the significance threshold of P<0.0001]). The percentage of participants with a pathological complete response was 19.2% in the durvalumab group and 7.2% in the placebo group (relative risk, 2.69 [95% CI, 1.86 to 3.90]). Adverse events with a maximum grade of 3 or 4 were reported in 340 participants (71.6%) in the durvalumab group and in 334 (71.2%) in the placebo group. The percentage of participants with delayed surgery was 10.1% and 10.8%, respectively, and the percentage with delayed initiation of adjuvant treatment was 2.3% and 4.6%.

Conclusions: Perioperative durvalumab plus FLOT led to significantly better event-free survival outcomes than FLOT alone among participants with resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. (Funded by AstraZeneca; MATTERHORN ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04592913.).

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