Indirect treatment comparison of first-line CDK4/6-inhibitors in post-menopausal patients with HR+/HER2-metastatic breast cancer

CDK4/6-inhibitors have demonstrated similar efficacy and are considered an effective first-line endocrine treatment of patients with hormone-receptor positive (HR+)/human-epidermal-growth-factor-receptor-2 negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer (MBC) in the endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS). Amongst these, palbociclib was first to achieve regulatory approval, followed subsequently by ribociclib and abemaciclib. However, recent updates of overall survival (OS) showed inconsistencies in the OS benefit for palbociclib compared with the other two CDK4/6-inhibitors. With the lack of head-to-head comparison studies, our study sought to compare indirect survival outcomes between CDK4/6-inhibitors in this setting using a novel reconstructive algorithm. Phase III randomized trials comparing first-line aromatase inhibitor with/without a CDK4/6-inhibitor in post-menopausal patients with HR+/HER2- MBC were identified through systemic review and literature search of online archives of published manuscripts and conference proceedings. A graphical reconstructive algorithm was utilized to retrieve time-to-event data from reported Kaplan-Meier OS and PFS plots to allow for comparison of survival outcomes. Survival analyses were conducted with Cox proportional-hazards model with a shared-frailty term. Three randomized phase III trials-PALOMA-2, MONALEESA-2 and MONARCH-3-comprising 1827 patients were included. Indirect pairwise comparisons of all CDK4/6-inhibitors showed no significant PFS differences (all > 0.05). Likewise, indirect treatment comparison between ribociclib vs. palbociclib (one-stage: HR = 0.903, 95%-CI: 0.746-1.094, = 0.297), abemaciclib vs. palbociclib (one-stage: HR = 0.843, 95%-CI: 0.690-1.030, = 0.094) and abemaciclib vs. ribociclib (one-stage: HR = 0.933, 95%-CI: 0.753-1.157, = 0.528) failed to demonstrate a significant OS difference. Findings from this indirect treatment comparison suggest no significant PFS or OS differences between CDK4/6-inhibitors in post-menopausal patients with HR+/HER2- MBC.