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Afinitor Plus Somatuline May Improve Survival in Aggressive GEP-NETs
Darlene Dobkowski, Managing Editor for CURE® magazine, has been with the team since October 2020 and has covered health care in other specialties before joining MJH Life Sciences. She graduated from Emerson College with a Master’s degree in print and multimedia journalism. In her free time, she enjoys buying stuff she doesn’t need from flea markets, taking her dog everywhere and scoffing at decaf.
Dr. Susumu Hijioka spoke about the benefit of this combination therapy in patients with unresectable or recurrent GEP-NETs, particularly those with high Ki-67 scores.
Findings from a recently presented study demonstrated that patients with unresectable or recurrent gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs) may benefit from treatment with Afinitor (everolimus) plus Somatuline (lanreotide), particularly those with a high Ki-67 score.
According to the National Cancer Institute, the Ki-67 proliferation index measures how quickly cancer cells in a tumor are dividing and growing. K-67 is a protein found in cells that are in the process of dividing. This particular score indicates the percentage of tumor cells that are positive for the Ki-67 protein. A high score means that many cells are dividing quickly, and the cancer is likely to grow and spread aggressively.
In the overall study, among patients with unresectable or recurrent GEP-NETs, Afinitor plus Somatuline demonstrated a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with Afinitor monotherapy, as well as an acceptable safety profile in the first-line treatment. In particular, progression-free survival refers to the length of time during and after treatment when a patient with cancer lives with the disease but does not get worse.
CURE spoke with Dr. Susumu Hijioka at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, where the findings were presented, to learn more about what patients should discuss with their care teams regarding the results of this study. Hijoka is from the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology at the National Cancer Center Hospital in Japan.
Transcript:
From our data, especially the subgroup analysis, across all subgroup analysis, [Afinitor] plus [Somatuline] is consistently better. However, the efficacy is more higher in the Ki-67 [group], [when] it’s more than 10% [in the] group. It means a more aggressive NET patient.
It's … effective, the [Afinitor] plus [Somatuline] arm. So we recommend to use, when the doctor sees the Ki-67 [score between] 10% to 20%, so it's better to use [Afinitor] plus [Somatuline] combination therapy.
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