Testing the Addition of the Drug Apalutamide to the Usual Hormone Therapy and Radiation Therapy After Surgery for Prostate Cancer, INNOVATE Trial

This phase III trial studies whether adding apalutamide to the usual treatment improves outcome in patients with lymph node positive prostate cancer after surgery. Radiation therapy uses high energy x-ray to kill tumor cells and shrink tumors. Androgens, or male sex hormones, can cause the growth of prostate cancer cells. Drugs, such as apalutamide, may help stop or reduce the growth of prostate cancer cell growth by blocking the attachment of androgen to its receptors on cancer cells, a mechanism similar to stopping the entrance of a key into its lock. Adding apalutamide to the usual hormone therapy and radiation therapy after surgery may stabilize prostate cancer and prevent it from spreading and extend time without disease spreading compared to the usual approach.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: I. Compare metastasis-free survival (MFS) of salvage radiation therapy (RT) and gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist/antagonist versus (vs.) RT/GnRH agonist/antagonist with apalutamide for patients with pathologic node-positive prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy with detectable prostate-specific antigen (PSA). SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Compare health-related quality of life (Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite \[EPIC\]-26, EuroQol \[EQ\]-5 Dimension \[D\]-5 Level \[L\], Brief Pain Inventory, Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System \[PROMIS\]-Fatigue) among the treatment arms. II. Compare overall survival, biochemical progression-free survival, time to local-regional progression, time to castrate resistance, and cancer-specific survival among the treatment arms. III. Compare the short-term and long-term treatment-related adverse events among the treatment arms. EXPLORATORY OBJECTIVES: I. Validate Decipher score for an exclusively node-positive population and use additional genomic information from Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0st array to develop and validate novel prognostic and predictive biomarkers. II. Validate the PAM50-based classification of prostate cancer into luminal A, luminal B, and basal subtypes as prognostic markers and determine whether the luminal B subtype is a predictive marker for having a larger improvement in outcome from the addition of apalutamide. III. To optimize quality assurance methodologies and processes for radiotherapy and imaging with machine learning strategies. OUTLINE: Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 arms. ARM I: Patients receive standard of care hormone therapy per physician discretion for 24 months. Patients also undergo standard of care pelvis and prostate bed radiation therapy 5 days per week over 5-6 or 7-8 weeks beginning within 90 days of randomization in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. ARM II: Patients undergo standard of care hormone therapy and radiation therapy as in Arm I. Patients also receive apalutamide orally (PO) once daily (QD) on days 1-90 of each cycle. Cycles repeat every 90 days for 8 cycles in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients in both arms may undergo computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), bone scan, and positron emission tomography (PET) as clinically indicated throughout the study. Patients may also undergo blood sample collection throughout the study. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up every 6 months for 3 years, then annually thereafter.