Abstract PO2-04-06: Investigation of the genomic evolution of HER2-positive breast cancer following progression on dual HER2-targetted therapy with Trastuzumab and Tucatinib
Authors: Blackley Elizabeth , van Geelen Courtney , Ko Yi-An , Wong Stephen , Yeung Miriam , Luen Stephen , Dawson Sarah-Jane , Loi Sherene 
Published: May 2024

Background: Advanced HER2-positive breast cancer remains an incurable and highly morbid condition. One of the key challenges has been treatment of central nervous system (CNS) metastases, commonly seen in those with HER2-positive disease. Tucatinib is a recently approved treatment HER2-targetting tyrosine kinase inhibitor with proven CNS activity. There has been little analysis of potential genomic mechanisms of drug resistance.

Method: We retrospectively identified patients that were treated with tucatinib, capecitabine and trastuzumab. We collated baseline clinical data and treatment history and all tumour and plasma samples available were obtained for testing. DNA was extracted from plasma samples using the QIAamp DNA Mini Kit (Qiagen) on 4ml plasma samples. Targeted next generation sequencing (NGS) of serial tumour and plasma samples was performed using a custom hybrid capture assay that covered 180 genes known to be recurrently mutated in breast cancer focusing on the known genomic landscape of metastatic disease as well as the inclusion of specific actionable targets. Survival analyses was performed using Cox regression models.

Results: We identified 11 patients at our institution. Plasma samples were available for all 11 patients with a total of 107 serial samples across multiple time points, with a median of 8 (range 2-19) samples per patient. All 11 patients had baseline and End of Treatment (EOT) samples. In addition, 6/11 (54%) patients had tumour sequenced on the same NGS platform prior to commencement of therapy, with 12 individual tumour samples tested. The median PFS of our cohort was 9.6 months (4.0 - NR) with a median OS of 36.2 months (10.4-NR). 7/11 (64%) patients had CNS disease at baseline with their median PFS being 13.5 months (3.9-24.4) and median OS of 36.2months (10.4-NR).

Overall, we observed an average of 18.4 (4-35) mutations per patient in tumour, 5.1 (1-15) in baseline plasma and 5.8 (2-14) in EOT plasma. The most frequent mutations seen in baseline tumour samples were ERBB2 (92%), KMT2C (67%) and NCOR1 (58%) compared with KMT2C (64%), NOTCH4 (36%) and PIK3CA (27%) in baseline plasma. Patients with a lower number of ctDNA mutations at baseline showed a trend towards improved survival (PFS 14 months vs 7.5 months).

In this small cohort of patients we identified a higher than expected rates of KMT2C mutations. A KMT2C mutation was identified in 67% of samples which is higher than previously described rates of 7-15% in TCGA and METABRIC cohorts respectively.

The presence of a concordant ctDNA KMT2C mutation in baseline and progression samples was a poor prognostic indicator (mPFS 7.5 months) when compared with no KMT2C mutation (mPFS 15.5 months) p =0.14 suggesting a possible mechanism of resistance to tucatinib.

Conclusions: In this retrospective analysis of patients treated with Tucatinib, Trastuzumab and Capecitabine we established the genomic landscape of heavily pre-treated, advanced HER2-positive disease is complex. We observed there may be a correlation with KMT2C mutations and poorer clinical outcomes, however given the very small number of patients this data remains hypothesis generating, requiring validation with larger datasets.

Citation Format: Elizabeth Blackley, Courtney van Geelen, Yi-An Ko, Stephen Wong, Miriam Yeung, Stephen Luen, Sarah-Jane Dawson, Sherene Loi. Investigation of the genomic evolution of HER2-positive breast cancer following progression on dual HER2-targetted therapy with Trastuzumab and Tucatinib [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO2-04-06.