A phase II randomized study of neoadjuvant letrozole plus alpelisib for hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative breast cancer (NeO-ORB)

Purpose: Addition of alpelisib to fulvestrant significantly extended progression-free survival in PIK3CA-mutant, hormone receptor–positive (HR^þ) advanced/metastatic breast cancer in the phase III SOLAR-1 study. The combination of alpelisib and letrozole also had promising activity in phase I studies of HR^þ advanced/metastatic breast cancer. NEO-ORB aimed to determine whether addition of alpelisib to letrozole could increase response rates in the neoadjuvant setting. Patients and Methods: Postmenopausal women with HR^þ, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative, T1c-T3 breast cancer were assigned to the PIK3CA-wild-type or PIK3CA-mutant cohort according to their tumor PIK3CA status, and randomized (1:1) to 2.5 mg/day letrozole with 300 mg/day alpelisib or placebo for 24 weeks. Primary endpoints were objective response rate (ORR) and pathologic complete response (pCR) rate for both PIK3CA cohorts. Results: In total, 257 patients were assigned to letrozole plus alpelisib (131 patients) or placebo (126 patients). Grade 3 adverse events (5% of patients) in the alpelisib arm were hyperglycemia (27%), rash (12%), and maculopapular rash (8%). The primary objective was not met; ORR in the alpelisib versus placebo arm was 43% versus 45% and 63% versus 61% in the PIK3CA-mutant and wild-type cohorts, respectively. pCR rates were low in all groups. Decreases in Ki-67 were similar across treatment arms and cohorts. In PIK3CA-mutant tumors, alpelisib plus letrozole treatment induced a greater decrease in phosphorylated AKT versus placebo plus letrozole. Conclusions: In contrast to initial results in advanced/metastatic disease, addition of alpelisib to 24-week neoadjuvant letrozole treatment did not improve response in patients with HR^þ early breast cancer.