Now Enrolling: The EA7222 clinical trial is testing a new treatment for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma

Sarcomas are rare cancers, representing about 1% of all cancer cases in adults. There are two main types — soft tissue sarcomas and bone sarcomas — and more than 70 subtypes. EA7222 is a study for patients with a subtype of soft tissue sarcoma called undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS). Diagnosed in about 2,000 patients in the United States each year, UPS can start anywhere in the body, often in the extremities (arms or legs). Unfortunately, UPS is an aggressive cancer with a poor prognosis: median survival for patients diagnosed with this cancer is about 2 years.

If, by the time it is found, UPS has spread beyond the place where it started, it is called metastatic, or advanced. For patients with metastatic UPS, the usual front-line treatment (the first treatment they usually receive) is chemotherapy. EA7222 is the first randomized trial to test whether adding a type of treatment called immunotherapy to chemotherapy leads to better results for these patients.

Immunotherapy activates the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Previous studies have shown that adding immunotherapy to front-line chemotherapy may lead to better, longer-lasting outcomes for patients with UPS. If successful, EA7222 has the potential to help patients live longer without disease progression compared to chemotherapy alone.

The study aims to enroll 180 participants. To be eligible, patients must have UPS that has spread beyond the starting point or cannot be treated with surgery. The disease must be visible on an imaging scan (CT or MRI). Eligible patients must not have already started treatment.

Patients enrolled in EA7222 will have an equal chance of being assigned to the standard of care (the usual treatment that patients with this cancer receive), the chemotherapy-only group, or the chemotherapy plus immunotherapy group. For both groups, treatment is given on a 21-day schedule, called a cycle. If patients are assigned to the chemotherapy-only group, they will receive 6 cycles of treatment and will be monitored by their doctor for 10 years after the end of treatment. If patients are assigned to the chemotherapy plus immunotherapy group, they will receive chemotherapy plus the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (PEM-broh-LIZ-oo–mab) for 6 cycles, after which they will continue taking pembrolizumab for up to 2 years from the start of treatment. They will then be monitored by their doctor for another 8 years.

Learn more about EA7222 at ecog-acrin.org.