We have established a panel of patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) from treatment naïve Asian NSCLC patients, including those containing "classic" EGFR activating mutations.
We selected NSCLC cell lines--A549 (KRAS G12S), NCI-H3255 (EGFR L858R), NCI-H3122 (EML4-ALK E13;A20), and HCC78 (SLC34A2-ROS1)-to evaluate the antiproliferative effects of submicromolar concentrations of the multitargeted TKIs imatinib, sorafenib, erlotinib, and crizotinib.
At the moment, established personalized treatment approaches include treatment of patients with NSCLC and activating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations with the EGFR-directed tyrosine kinase inhibitors gefitinib or erlotinib, and treatment of NSCLC patients with genetic aberrations in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) oncogene with the mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor (MET)/ALK inhibitor crizotinib.
As more health authorities approve targeted compounds in a variety of treatment lines, use of this approach is expected only to increase.Gefitinib, an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor (tki), is approved by Health Canada in the first-line setting of advanced non-small-cell lung carcinoma (nsclc) for tumours that harbour the EGFR gene mutation.
New drugs such as pemetrexed, the epidermal growth factor receptor (egfr) tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and the Alk inhibitor crizotinib have recently enabled progress in the management of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (nsclc).
Three randomized trials of gefitinib versus chemotherapy (IPASS, WJTOG3405, NEJ002) in stage IV NSCLC have consistently demonstrated better RR and PFS (hazard ratios of 0.48 [IPASS], 0.49 [WJTOG3405] and 0.30 [NEJ002]) for EGFR-mutated NSCLCs treated with gefitinib.
Effect of crizotinib on overall survival in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer harbouring ALK gene rearrangement: a retrospective analysis.
The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) represents the main target for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) therapy, as its overexpression or constitutive activation contributes to malignancy and correlates with poor prognosis.
We further identified a subset (3/50; 6%) of treatment naive NSCLC patients with ALK rearrangements that also had concurrent EGFR activating mutations.
In an ALK-enriched population, patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer were screened by ALK fluorescence in situ hybridization and for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and KRAS mutations.
The arrival of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) in first line of treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations has changed the strategy of treatment of theses patients.
Findings from the phase 3 FLEX study showed that the addition of cetuximab to cisplatin and vinorelbine significantly improved overall survival, compared with cisplatin and vinorelbine alone, in the first-line treatment of EGFR-expressing, advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
In presence of EGFR mutation negative or unknown status, patients with advanced squamous NSCLC, with good performance status (PS) and without major co-morbidities, chemotherapy with third-generation regimens containing cisplatin is the recommended treatment.