Transcriptional profiling of primary prostate tumor in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer and association with clinical outcomes: correlative analysis of the E3805 CHAARTED study.

The phase III CHAARTED trial established upfront androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) plus docetaxel (D) as a standard for metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) based on meaningful improvement in overall survival (OS). Biological prognostic markers of outcomes and predictors of chemotherapy benefit are undefined.

Whole transcriptomic profiling was performed on primary prostate cancer (PC) tissue obtained from patients enrolled in CHAARTED prior to systemic therapy. We adopted an a priori analytical plan to test defined RNA signatures and their associations with HSPC clinical phenotypes and outcomes. Multivariable analyses (MVA) adjusted for age, ECOG status, de novo metastasis presentation, volume of disease, and treatment arm. The primary endpoint was OS; the secondary endpoint was time to castration resistant prostate cancer (ttCRPC).

The analytic cohort of 160 patients demonstrated marked differences in transcriptional profile compared to localized PC, with a predominance of luminal B (50%) and basal (48%) subtypes, lower AR activity (AR-A) and high Decipher risk disease. Luminal B subtype was associated with poorer prognosis on ADT alone but benefited significantly from ADT+D (OS: HR 0.45, p=0.007), in contrast to basal subtype which showed no OS benefit (HR 0.85, p=0.58), even in those with high volume disease. Higher Decipher risk and lower AR-A significantly were associated with poorer OS in MVA. Additionally, higher Decipher risk showed greater improvements in OS with ADT+D (HR 0.41, p=0.015).

This study demonstrates the utility of transcriptomic subtyping to guide prognostication in mHSPC and potential selection of patients for chemohormonal therapy, and provides proof-of-concept for the possibility of biomarker-guided selection of established combination therapies in mHSPC.

Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology. 2021 Jun 12 [Epub ahead of print]

A A Hamid, H-C Huang, V Wang, Y-H Chen, F Feng, R Den, G Attard, E M Van Allen, P T Tran, D E Spratt, R Dittamore, E Davicioni, G Liu, R DiPaola, M A Carducci, C J Sweeney

Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia., Decipher Biosciences, San Diego, CA, USA., Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA., Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA., University College London Cancer Institute, London, United Kingdom., Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA., Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD, USA., Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA., University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, WI, USA., University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington, KY, USA., Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: .