Abstract 2613: Predictive impact of low-frequency pretreatment T790M mutation in patients with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors
Authors: Matsumoto Yoshiya , Sawa Kenji , Oyanagi Jun , Fukui Mitsuru , Yoshimoto Naoki , Suzumura Tomohiro , Mitsuoka Shigeki , Asai Kazuhisa , Kimura Tatsuo , Yamamoto Nobuyuki , Kawaguchi Tomoya , Hirata Kazuto , Koh Yasuhiro 
Published: August 2018

Background: T790M mutation in EGFR accounts for nearly 50% of the acquired mechanism of resistance to EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Previous studies suggested that EGFR T790M mutation was also detected in a considerable number of EGFR-TKI-naïve non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients utilizing ultrasensitive detection methods such as droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). Here we investigated the significance of low-frequency pretreatment EGFR T790M mutation (preT790M) and its association with cancer molecular heterogeneity in the efficacy of EGFR-TKIs.

Materials and methods: Fifty-two advanced NSCLC patients harboring activating EGFR mutations treated with first-line EGFR-TKIs at Osaka City University Hospital between August 2013 and July 2016 were enrolled in the study. DNAs from tumor biopsies at diagnosis were available from 44 patients for detecting preT790M by the cobas® EGFR Mutation Test v2 (cobas) and ddPCR (RainDance Technologies) and those from 33 were available for assessing the actionable mutations in 50 genes by next-generation sequencing (NGS). NGS was performed on the Ion PGM using Ion AmpliSeq Cancer Hotspot Panel v2 (Life Technologies). Paired biopsies before EGFR-TKIs treatment and at disease progression (PD) were obtained from 15 patients to assess the T790M mutation by cobas.

Results: The overall detection rate of preT790M by ddPCR was 40.9% (18/44), while not detected in any case by cobas. The median progression free survival (mPFS) was 10.0 months for the patients with preT790M and 13.5 months for those without preT790M (p=0.288), respectively. When divided into 3 categories based on the frequency of preT790M such as high with T790M allele frequency (AF) &gt;0.3%, low with AF ≤0.3% and undetected, 12 patients with high AF had a relatively shorter mPFS than 6 with low AF (p=0.090) and 26 without detectable preT790M (p=0.046) (7.7 vs 17.1 vs 13.5 months, respectively). NGS revealed 18 additional coexisting actionable mutations in 15 out of 33 patients: TP53 (n=7), PIK3CA (n=5), CTNNB1 (n=3) and uncommon EGFR (n=3). There was a trend for patients with higher preT790M AF to harbor less additional coexisting mutations (27% with high AF, 60% with low AF and 53% without preT790M, p=0.320). In 15 paired biopsies, T790M mutation was detected in 60% (9/15) at PD by cobas in the clinical setting; 67% (2/3) with high AF, 50% (1/2) with low AF and 60% (6/10) without detectable preT790M, suggesting T790M mutation after first-line EGFR-TKIs developed from both clonal selection and secondary acquisition models.

Conclusion: Results of our study indicated that EGFR-mutated NSCLCs with higher AF preT790M &gt;0.3% had significantly shorter duration of response to EGFR-TKIs. In addition, the AF of preT790M in EGFR-mutated NSCLC may be associated with coexisting actionable mutation load potentially affecting the efficacy of EGFR-TKIs.

Citation Format: Yoshiya Matsumoto, Kenji Sawa, Jun Oyanagi, Mitsuru Fukui, Naoki Yoshimoto, Tomohiro Suzumura, Shigeki Mitsuoka, Kazuhisa Asai, Tatsuo Kimura, Nobuyuki Yamamoto, Tomoya Kawaguchi, Kazuto Hirata, Yasuhiro Koh. Predictive impact of low-frequency pretreatment T790M mutation in patients with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2613.