The Medical University of Vienna (MUV), one of Europe’s largest cancer centers, has released the results of the first immuno-oncology study assessing the clinical impact and feasibility of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (MCBS) in real life.
The results were published in the ESMO Open journal in two reports titled “The European Society for Medical Oncology Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale in daily practice: a single institution, real-life experience at the Medical University of Vienna,” and “Applying the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale in real life.”
The team led a systematic evaluation of well-established oncologic treatment strategies from first-line to salvage treatment throughout major tumor entities to show that the ESMO-MCBS works with reliable results and is reproducible in the field of advanced or metastatic disease, which encourages its use in daily routine.
“It is remarkable to see that certain new treatments such as checkpoint inhibitors improve outcome impressively in comparison with recent treatment standards, as assessed by the ESMO-MCBS: such important compounds should be recommended for fast-track implementation in practice,” said Dr. Barbara Kiesewetter, who is an MUV researcher and lead author of the study, in a press release.
“We analyzed treatments and scored trials on the ESMO-MCBS and the resulting data was in line with clinical experience. As a result, our Program Directors feel confident to use the ESMO-MCBS, particularly for novel treatments such as immunotherapy, to get an idea on what can be expected to support clinicians’ decision-making in practice.”
The ESMO-MCBS assesses the therapeutic benefit of drugs registered for the treatment of cancer and considers overall survival and progress-free survival – in terms of absolute gain and lower end of the 95 percent confidence interval of the corresponding hazard ratio and quality of life or toxicity, respectively – as the predefined primary and secondary study endpoints. Data of the new treatment is then assessed concerning the duration of response or survival in the control arm, which is in turn entered in corresponding forms and results in a clinical benefit ranking.
“The ESMO-MCBS is very simple to use and we feel that it is going to prove to be a very important tool for daily clinical practice based on our study results. Clinicians can go back to the data when considering new treatments and use the ESMO-MCBS online forms to analyze what can be expected from a new approach,” Kiesewetter said.
