Nimotuzumab Combined With Trifluridine/Tipiracil in the Treatment of Refractory Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study. The main purpose of the study is to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of nimotuzumab combined with trifluridine/tipiracil in third-line and beyond for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). This study planned to be divided into two parts: Part A and Part B. Part A is a dose escalation study, and two dose levels are set up in terms of the dose of nimotuzumab (dose level 1: nimotuzumab 400 mg weekly; dose level 2: nimotuzumab 600 mg weekly), while the dose of trifluridine/tipiracil remains unchanged. The aim of this part is to investigate the safety of combination therapy and ensure the dose of nimotuzumab in Part B. After completed the safety-run-in of Part A, Part B can be started. In Part B (main study), a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design is proposed. Patients of this part will be stratified by tumor site (left half of colorectal vs right half of colon), age (less than 70 years old vs 70 years old or older) and number of metastases (\<1 vs ≥1) and randomly divided into experimental group (nimotuzumab plus trifluridine/tipiracil) and control group (placebo plus trifluridine/tipiracil) at a ratio of 2:1. Treatment will continue until disease progression or intolerable toxicity or withdrawal of consent. In part B, the primary endpoint is overall survival (OS); the secondary endpoint included: Progression free survival (PFS), time to progress (TTP), overall response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), duration of response (DoR), quality of life (QoL), etc.