The investigators propose to conduct a retrospective study of single agent ceritinib in patients with previously untreated anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearranged adenocarcinoma of the lung with the sole purpose of characterizing the genomic landscape before ceritinib and at the time of disease progression.
Further improvements in therapy can only be achieved with a better understanding of the genomic landscape of ALK rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), specifically at the time of disease progression following treatment with ALK inhibitors. Recently, secondary ALK mutations, L1196M and G1269A have been described in patients with acquired resistance to crizotinib. A small subset of ALK positive lung cancer patients who progressed after treatment with ceritinib had tumors available for molecular analysis. Secondary mutations found included G1202R, F1174C, and F1174V. While this is interesting, an unbiased genomic study (exome or whole genome sequencing) using massively parallel sequencing at the time of disease progression is critical to fully understand the clonal evolution and the molecular mechanisms underpinning treatment resistance. To the best of the investigators' knowledge, such a study has not yet been reported. The investigators believe the time is ripe now to comprehensively characterize genomic alterations using massively parallel sequencing technology of ALK driven adenocarcinoma of the lung to fully understand the clonal heterogeneity before therapy and fully understand the clonal evolution and the molecular mechanisms underpinning treatment resistance. A better understanding of genomic alterations through an unbiased comprehensive approach likely would lead to rationally designed therapy to augment response to ALK inhibitors.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
6
Washington University School of Medicine
St Louis, Missouri, United States
Genetic changes associated with disease progression following treatment with ceritinib
* The investigators will compare tumor sequencing prior to ceritinib treatment to the time of disease progression to see if the genetic sequencing changed between pre-treatment and progression. * The investigators plan to conduct exome and transcriptome sequencing of tumor before therapy with certitinib and at the time of relapse. In addition, exome sequencing of peripheral blood DNA will be done (for germline). Given the complexities of genomic analyses of paired samples in the face of limited data, the investigators will not be able to do any formal power calculations in this feasibility study. * Disease progression is at least a 20% increase in the sum of the diameters of target lesions, taking as reference the smallest sum on study or appearance of one or more new lesions and/or unequivocal progression of existing non-target lesions.
Time frame: Estimated to be 1 year
Types of mutations in signaling kinases associated with therapeutic response
* Investigators will look at tumor tissue associated with a therapeutic response and compare with tumor tissue associated with disease progression and see if there are any mutation differences. * Therapeutic Response * Complete response is disappearance of all target lesions and non-target lesions. * Partial Response is at least a 30% decrease in the sum of the diameters of target lesions, taking as reference the baseline sum diameters.
Time frame: Estimated to be 1 year
Allelic ratio of wild type ALT to ALK gene rearrangement (roughly corrected for intrinsic difference in tumor cellularity) with duration of response
* A variant is considered to have mutant biased expression if the variant is expressed and the variant allele frequency is greater than 20% higher in the RNA-seq data compared to the exome sequencing data. A variant is considered to have wild type biased expression if the gene is expressed, the region of the variant is covered at 5X or greater depth, and the VAF is at least 20% lower in the RNA-seq data compared to the exome sequencing data. * Duration of response is the duration of overall response is measured from the time measurement criteria are met for complete response or partial response (whichever is first recorded) until the first date that recurrent or progressive disease is objectively documented (taking as reference for progressive disease the smallest measurements recorded since the treatment started).
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Time frame: Estimated to be 1 year