Phase 2 trial of dovitinib in patients with progressive FGFR3-mutated or FGFR3 wild-type advanced urothelial carcinoma

Abstract Background Second-line treatment options for patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma (UC) are limited. Fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) is dysregulated in UC by activating mutations or protein overexpression in non-mutant tumours. In this study, the efficacy, pharmacodynamics and safety of dovitinib—a broad-targeted inhibitor of tyrosine kinases, including FGFR3—were evaluated in patients with previously treated advanced UC with and without FGFR3 mutations. Methods Forty-four adults with advanced UC who had progressed after one to three platinum-based and/or combination chemotherapy regimens were classified as having mutant ( FGFR3 MUT ; n  = 12), wild-type ( FGFR3 WT ; n  = 31), or unknown ( n  = 1) FGFR3 status. Patients received 500 mg dovitinib once daily on a 5-days-on/2-days-off schedule. The primary end-point of this two-stage study was the investigator-assessed overall response rate (ORR). Results Most of the patients were men (75%) and over half of the patients were aged ⩾65 years (61%). All patients had received ⩾1 prior antineoplastic therapy for UC. The study was terminated at the end of stage 1, when it was determined by investigator review that the ORR of both the FGFR3 MUT (0%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.0–26.5) and FGFR3 WT (3.2%; 95% CI, 0.1–16.7) groups did not meet the criteria to continue to stage 2. The most common grade 3/4 adverse events, suspected to be study-drug related, included thrombocytopenia (9%), fatigue (9%), and asthenia (9%). Conclusion Although generally well tolerated, dovitinib has very limited single-agent activity in patients with previously treated advanced UC, regardless of FGFR3 mutation status. clinicaltrials.gov NCT00790426.