Avelumab Plus Best Supportive Care Shows Efficacy in Urothelial Carcinoma

Petros Grivas, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Division of Medical Oncology and clinical director of the Genitourinary Cancers Program at the University of Washington School of Medicine, discusses the JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial of maintenance avelumab (Bavencio) plus best supportive care versus best supportive care alone after platinum-based first-line chemotherapy in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma.

This phase 3 trial demonstrated a statistically and clinically significant difference with a prolongation of overall survival (OS) for patients receiving avelumab plus best supportive care compared with best supportive care alone. In patients with avelumab plus best supportive care, the median OS was over 21 months and about 14 months in patients with best supportive care alone, which is a big difference compared to what is usually seen in oncology, according to Grivas. He says this made more statistical rigor with an impressive hazard ratio of 0.69, which suggest patients getting avelumab plus best supportive care will live longer.

Grivas says patients do not need to be checked for any biomarkers in this setting, such as PD-L1, since the OS benefit was seen in all-comers.

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