Abstract 996
Background
The efficacy of continuing anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) beyond initial disease progression for ALK-positive patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has not been fully understood.
Methods
We retrospectively analyzed 74 ALK-positive advanced NSCLC patients who received ALK-TKIs between August 2011 and July 2017 in Kumamoto university hospital and community hospitals in Japan. Continuation of ALK-TKIs beyond progressive disease (PD) was defined as > 3 weeks of ALK-TKIs treatment after PD confirmation.
Results
Among 74 patients, 32 received alectinib treatment and 42 received crizotinib as first ALK-TKI treatments. Progression free survival of patients with alectinib was significantly longer than that of crizotinib in the ALK inhibitor-naïve population (32.8 months versus 13.3 months, P = 0.005). Forty-one patients among the 74 patients treated with ALK-TKIs had RECIST-defined PD. Eleven of 41 RECIST-defined PD patients continued ALK-TKI therapy. The median time to tumor progression of these 11 patients was 11.7 months. The median overall survival of patients with or without continuation of ALK-TKIs beyond initial PD was 59.7 months versus 51.2 months, respectively (P = 0.35).
Conclusions
Continuing ALK inhibition with crizotinib or alectinib after initial PD may provide survival benefit to patients with advanced ALK-positive NSCLC.
Editorial acknowledgement
Clinical trial identification
Legal entity responsible for the study
Shinya Sakata.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.