Maintenance avelumab following first-line chemotherapy in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma resulted in prolonged overall survival in the JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial, with a median of 21.4 months. However, only those with sustained disease control with induction chemotherapy were eligible to receive maintenance.
Comparisons of survival outcomes of maintenance therapies against other first-line treatment options are often limited by trial design. With maintenance therapies, some studies measure survival from time to randomization rather than time from the start of first-line treatment.
Using a weighted hazard approach, Curta researchers derived an estimated median survival maintenance-intended patients of 15.8 months from the start of first-line chemotherapy. This estimate and approach can be used to compare the survival of treatments that enrolls an all-comer population regardless of prior response and employ a traditional trial design to the availability of a maintenance treatment option.