Cemiplimab in recurrent cervical cancer: Final analysis of overall survival in the phase III EMPOWER-Cervical 1/GOG-3016/ENGOT-cx9 trial

Aim: Cemiplimab has demonstrated significantly longer survival than physician's choice of chemotherapy in patients with recurrent cervical cancer after first-line platinum-containing chemotherapy. We report the final survival analysis from the phase III randomized study (EMPOWER-Cervical 1/GOG-3016/ENGOT-cx9). Methods: Cemiplimab (n = 304) or chemotherapy (n = 304) were administered every 3 weeks. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS). Patients were included regardless of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) status. Results: At a median follow-up of 47.3 months (data cut-off: April 20, 2023), median OS was 11.7 versus 8.5 months for patients treated with cemiplimab and chemotherapy, respectively (hazard ratio 0.67, 95 % confidence interval 0.56–0.80, p < .00001). OS benefit was seen in PD-L1 positive and negative populations, even though more patients with PD-L1 < 1 % (n = 92), had poor performance status in the cemiplimab arm than the chemotherapy arm (61.4 % vs 47.9 %). Conclusion: This final analysis confirms that cemiplimab maintains survival benefit compared with chemotherapy in recurrent cervical cancer after progression on first-line platinum therapy, regardless of PD-L1 expression. The safety profile was consistent with published data; incidences of adverse events were similar between cemiplimab and chemotherapy groups. These results support the use of second-line cemiplimab for patients with recurrent cervical cancer.