Adjuvant Chemotherapy in Patients With Intermediate or High Risk Stage I or Stage IIA Non-squamous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: AIM-HIGH (Adjuvant Intervention in Molecular High Risk Patients)

The optimal treatment for Stage I or Stage IIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial. Radiographic surveillance alone has been recommended for stage I and stage IIA patients after the tumor is removed surgically from the lung, and this standard has been based on the fact that no previous clinical trial has demonstrated a benefit for Stage I or Stage IIA NSCLC patients who receive post-operative chemotherapy. These patients, however, have a substantial risk of death within five years after operation, ranging from approximately 30% to 45%, largely due to metastatic disease that is present immediately after surgery but that is undetectable by conventional methods. Some leading organizations therefore currently recommend post-operative chemotherapy as an alternative standard of care in Stage I or Stage IIA NSCLC patients who are considered to be at particularly high-risk. Up until now, however, there has not been a well-validated means to identify stage I and stage IIA NSCLC patients at high risk of death within five years after operation. A new prognostic tool, a 14-Gene Prognostic Assay, which has been validated and definitively demonstrated in large scale studies to identify intermediate and high-risk stage I or Stage IIA patients with non-squamous NSCLC, is now available to all clinicians through a CLIA-certified laboratory. It is therefore now possible to compare the outcomes of patients randomly assigned to one or the other of these competing standards of care.

Sex

All

Minimum age

18 Years

Inclusion Criteria:

* Written informed consent
* Age ≥ 18 years
* Able to comply with the protocol, including acceptable candidacy for adjuvant chemotherapy according to local institutional standards and likely compliance with follow-up for anticipated length of study (i.e. 5 years from the initiation of enrollment).
* Willing to be randomized to chemotherapy.
* Histologically documented completely resected (R0) Stage I or IIA non-squamous NSCLC (per 8th edition, TNM staging system)
* Adequate tissue sample for the 14-Gene Prognostic Assay
* Life expectancy excluding NSCLC diagnosis ≥ 5 years
* ECOG performance status 0-1

Exclusion Criteria:

* Final pathologic diagnosis of pure squamous cell, pure small cell, or pure neuroendocrine histology, or any combination of only these three histologies
* Evidence of greater than stage IIA pathologic staging
* Evidence of incomplete resection
* Pregnant or lactating women
* Unwilling to use an effective means of contraception
* Active infection, either systemic or at site of primary resection
* Systemic chemotherapy or anti-cancer agent within 5 years prior to enrollment
* Radiotherapy to the chest in the immediate pre- or post- operative period
* Malignancies other than the current NSCLC within 5 years prior to randomization, except for adequately treated CIS of the cervix, non-melanoma skin cancer, localized prostate cancer treated locally, ductal carcinoma in situ treated surgically
* Treatment with any investigational drug or participation in another clinical trial within 28 days prior to enrollment
* Known hypersensitivity to study treatment agents
* Evidence of any other disease including infection that contraindicates the use of systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy or puts the patient at high risk for treatment-related complications
* Wound dehiscence or infection

• BACKGROUNDKratz JR, He J, Van Den Eeden SK, Zhu ZH, Gao W, Pham PT, Mulvihill MS, Ziaei F, Zhang H, Su B, Zhi X, Quesenberry CP, Habel LA, Deng Q, Wang Z, Zhou J, Li H, Huang MC, Yeh CC, Segal MR, Ray MR, Jones KD, Raz DJ, Xu Z, Jahan TM, Berryman D, He B, Mann MJ, Jablons DM. A practical molecular assay to predict survival in resected non-squamous, non-small-cell lung cancer: development and international validation studies. Lancet. 2012 Mar 3;379(9818):823-32. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61941-7. Epub 2012 Jan 27. PMID 22285053
• BACKGROUNDWoodard GA, Wang SX, Kratz JR, Zoon-Besselink CT, Chiang CY, Gubens MA, Jahan TM, Blakely CM, Jones KD, Mann MJ, Jablons DM. Adjuvant Chemotherapy Guided by Molecular Profiling and Improved Outcomes in Early Stage, Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer. Clin Lung Cancer. 2018 Jan;19(1):58-64. doi: 10.1016/j.cllc.2017.05.015. Epub 2017 May 31. PMID 28645632
• BACKGROUNDKratz JR, Van den Eeden SK, He J, Jablons DM, Mann MJ. A prognostic assay to identify patients at high risk of mortality despite small, node-negative lung tumors. JAMA. 2012 Oct 24;308(16):1629-31. doi: 10.1001/jama.2012.13551. No abstract available. PMID 23093159
• DERIVEDSpigel DR, Westeel V, Anderson IC, Greillier L, Guisier F, Bylicki O, Badin FB, Rousseau-Bussac G, Deldycke C, Griesinger F, Bograd A, Zhong W, Le Treut J, Van Hulst S, Gandara DR, Reck M, Hoffknecht P, Gubens MA, Crowley J, von der Leyen H, Woodard GA, Jablons DM, Kratz JR, Mann MJ; AIM-HIGH investigators. Adjuvant chemotherapy for stage IA-IIA non-squamous, non-small-cell lung cancer identified as molecular high-risk by a 14-gene expression profile (AIM-HIGH): an international, randomised, phase 3 trial. Lancet Respir Med. 2025 Oct;13(10):887-896. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(25)00213-9. Epub 2025 Jun 24. PMID 40578381