Dr. Leighl Shares PALOMA-3 Data on Patient Experiences With Subcutaneous Amivantamab

Natasha Leighl, BSc, MMSc, MD, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University Health Network, joined Lung Cancers Today at the IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer to discuss patient satisfaction and resource utilization results from the PALOMA-3 study evaluating subcutaneous versus intravenous amivantamab.

Dr. Leighl explained why it was important to evaluate patient experiences with subcutaneous versus intravenous amivantamab.

“One of the challenges with amivantamab administration has been that about two-thirds of patients, especially in the first hour of cycle 1, day 1, develop an infusion-related reaction,” she said. “And of course, that’s unnerving for patients and takes up a lot of time in our chemotherapy delivery units. The subcutaneous formulation was really aimed to improve the patient experience and to decrease the amount of administration time.”

Beyond the patient experience and administration time considerations, the PALOMA-3 trial previously showed a surprising result with subcutaneous amivantamab.

“In this randomized trial with over 400 patients per arm, we found that not only did we significantly reduce the administration time, but we also achieved a pharmacokinetic non-inferiority similar response, numerically better progression free survival, and median duration of response,” Dr. Leighl said. “And, to our surprise, improved overall survival with a hazard ratio of 0.62.”

The data on patient satisfaction and resource utilization presented as an oral abstract during the IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer showed a “really major difference” in administration times with subcutaneous versus intravenous amivantamab, Dr. Leighl said.

“Over two-thirds of patients reported that subcutaneous amivantamab was highly convenient and didn’t impact them at all in terms of their ability to function normally and was very, very convenient in terms of local symptoms,” she said. “Only a very small number of patients reported pain at the site and the vast majority of patients had no issues with erythema or swelling.”

Dr. Leighl also highlighted the data on patient and provider experiences with subcutaneous amivantamab.

“More than 80% [of patients] really were highly satisfied with treatment. They would recommend it to others and of course that’s incredibly important,” she said. “The other thing that we did see was that when it came to provider time, we also significantly decreased that in the study.”

Overall, the study represents a “tremendous advance,” Dr. Leighl said, explaining that regulatory actions are underway for the subcutaneous formulation of amivantamab.

“It’s actually received priority review status, which is very exciting for us because this is the first time this has happened with subcutaneous formulation,” she said.