Tumour Treating Fields for mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Tumour Treating Fields for mesothelioma, by C.J. de Gooijer, J.A. Burgers (The Lancet. Oncology, 2020).

The study

• Authors: C.J. de Gooijer, J.A. Burgers
• Journal: The Lancet. Oncology
• Published: 2020;21(1):e9
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a new study. The authors, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, commented on the STELLAR study, a single-arm phase 2 trial by other researchers that added Tumour Treating Fields (TTFields) to standard first-line platinum–pemetrexed chemotherapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma. The authors noted that STELLAR was designed to show median overall survival of 17.6 months, compared with a historical control of 12.1 months from a 2003 study. They pointed out that in more recent trials, control groups given platinum–pemetrexed had median overall survival of 16.1 months (95% CI 14.0–17.9) in MAPS, 14.2 months (12.3–20.9) in LUME-Meso phase 2 and 16.1 months (13.7–19.3) in LUME-Meso phase 3. Median overall survival in STELLAR was 18.2 months (95% CI 12.1–25.8). They wrote that STELLAR's progression-free survival (7.6 months) and response rate (40%) were also comparable with those control groups, and that some prognostic factors were not reported in STELLAR. The authors concluded that it was too early to use TTFields in daily practice for malignant pleural mesothelioma, and they encouraged randomised studies.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor (correspondence) commenting on another group's published trial (STELLAR); not original research
• Who was studied: No population of its own; the letter discussed the STELLAR study, a single-arm phase 2 trial in malignant pleural mesothelioma, and compared it with control groups from other trials
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure was studied; the subject was a treatment, TTFields added to platinum–pemetrexed chemotherapy
• Main results:
  • The authors noted that STELLAR (another group's study) was designed to detect an increase of 5.5 months in median overall survival, to 17.6 months, compared with a historical control
  • The authors noted that the historical control, a 2003 study by Vogelzang and colleagues, reported median overall survival of 12.1 months in patients treated with cisplatin–pemetrexed
  • The authors cited median overall survival in control groups given platinum–pemetrexed in other trials: 16.1 months (95% CI 14.0–17.9) in MAPS, 14.2 months (12.3–20.9) in LUME-Meso phase 2, and 16.1 months (13.7–19.3) in LUME-Meso phase 3
  • The authors noted that median overall survival in STELLAR was 18.2 months (95% CI 12.1–25.8)
  • The authors stated that STELLAR's progression-free survival of 7.6 months and response rate of 40% were comparable with the control groups of the MAPS and LUME-Meso trials
  • The authors pointed out that some prognostic factors were not reported in STELLAR
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that it was too early to implement TTFields in daily practice for malignant pleural mesothelioma, and they called for randomised studies

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer, Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Tumour Treating Fields in combination with pemetrexed and cisplatin or carboplatin as first-line treatment for unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma (STELLAR): a multicentre, single-arm phase 2 trial — G.L. Ceresoli, J.G. Aerts, et al. (2019)
• Tumour Treating Fields for mesothelioma: controversy versus opportunity — D.A. Fennell (2019)
• Tumour Treating Fields for mesothelioma — M. Barbarino, M. Bottaro, et al. (2020)
• Tumour Treating Fields for mesothelioma - Authors' reply — G.L. Ceresoli, L. Gianoncelli, et al. (2020)
• Tumour treating fields therapy for glioblastoma: current advances and future directions — O. Rominiyi, A. Vanderlinden, et al. (2021)
• Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) downregulate the Fanconi Anemia-BRCA pathway and increase the efficacy of chemotherapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma preclinical models — H. Mumblat, A. Martinez-Conde, et al. (2021)

Browse more research in The Lancet. Oncology, or return to medical research.