HELOISE: Phase IIIb randomized multicenter study comparing standard-of-care and higher-dose trastuzumab regimens combined with chemotherapy as first-line therapy in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–positive metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma

© 2017 by American Society of Clinical Oncology. Purpose: To compare standard-of-care (SoC) trastuzumab plus chemotherapy with higher-dose (HD) trastuzumab plus chemotherapy to investigate whether HD trastuzumab increases trastuzumab serum trough concentration (C trough ) levels and increases overall survival (OS) in first-line human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–positive metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. Patients and Methods: Patients with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 2, no prior gastrectomy, and ≥ two metastatic sites were randomly assigned at a one-to-one ratio to loading-dose trastuzumab 8 mg/kg followed by SoC trastuzumab maintenance 6 mg/kg every 3 weeks or loading-dose trastuzumab 8 mg/kg followed by HD trastuzumab maintenance 10 mg/kg every 3 weeks until progression; treatment in each arm was combined with cisplatin 80 mg/m 2 plus capecitabine 800 mg/m 2 twice per day in cycles 1 to 6. The primary objective was HD trastuzumab OS superiority (all randomly assigned patients [full-analysis set]). Final results are from an interim analysis for futility (boundary hazard ratio [HR] ≥ 0.95) at 125 deaths. Results: At clinical cutoff, 248 patients had been randomly assigned. A marked increase in mean trastuzumab C trough was observed after the first HD trastuzumab cycle versus SoC trastuzumab. In the full-analysis set, median OS was 12.5 months in the SoC trastuzumab arm and 10.6 months in the HD trastuzumab arm (stratified HR, 1.24; 95% CI, 0.86 to 1.78; P = .2401). Results were similar in the per-protocol set (cycle 1 trastuzumab C trough < 12 μg/mL). Safety was comparable between arms. Conclusion: HD trastuzumab maintenance dosing was associated with higher trastuzumab concentrations, no increased efficacy, and no new safety signals. HELOISE confirms standard-dose trastuzumab (loading dose of 8 mg/kg followed by 6 mg/kg maintenance dose every 3 weeks) with chemotherapy as the SoC for first-line treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–positive metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.