Personalized cancer therapy has attracted much attention

ORIGINAL ARTICLE EML4-ALK Translocation Predicts Better Outcome in Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients with Wild-Type EGFR Shang-Gin Wu, MD,* Yao-Wen Kuo, MD,* Yih-Leong Chang, MD, Jin-Yuan Shih, MD, PhD, Ya-Hui Chen, MSc, Meng-Feng Tsai, PhD, Chong-Jen Yu, MD, PhD, Chih-Hsin Yang, MD, PhD, and Pan-Chyr Yang, MD, PhD Introduction: The echinoderm microtubule-associated protein like 4-anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) fusion represents a novel target in a subset of non-small cell lung cancer, especially adenocarcinoma. EML4-ALK fusion is mutually exclusive with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. To understand the impact of EML4-ALK on the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer, we examined EML4-ALK fusion in lung adenocarcinoma from patients with wild-type EGFR and analyzed their clinical treatment outcomes. Methods: Lung adenocarcinoma patients with malignant pleural effusions having wild-type EGFR and measurable target lesions were enrolled for EML4-ALK analysis by reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction and direct sequencing. Demographic data, EML4-ALK status, and survival data were analyzed. We also performed fluorescence in situ hybridization on some available tumor samples to validate the PCR result. In addition, K-ras mutation was analyzed for patients without EML4-ALK fusion genes. Results: A total of 116 patients with wild-type EGFR sequencing results had complete clinical data for analysis. No patients received ALK inhibitor therapy. There were 39 patients (34%) with the EML4-ALK fusion gene. The concordance rate between reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and fluorescence in situ hybridization was 85%. The K-ras mutation rate for patients without EML4-ALK fusion gene was 6.5%. By multivariate analysis, patients who had better performance status (p 0.001) and EML4-ALK translocation (p 0.017) had longer overall survival. Comparing patients with tumors harboring variant 1 with those harboring nonvariant 1 EML4-ALK fusion genes, there were no significant differences in clinical factors and survival outcome. *Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital Yun-Lin Branch, Yun-Lin; Departments of Pathology and Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei; Department of Molecular Biotechnology, Da-Yeh University, Chang-Hua; Department of Oncology, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei; and Graduate Institute of Oncology, Cancer Research Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Disclosure: Dr. C.J. Yu, Dr. C.-H. Yang, and Dr. J.Y. Shih received honoraria for speeches from Astra Zeneca and Roche. Address for correspondence: Jin-Yuan Shih, MD, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7, Chung- Shan South Road, Taipei 100, Taiwan. E-mail: jyshih@ntu.edu.tw Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer ISSN: 1556-0864/12/0701-0098 Conclusion: For lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR, EML4-ALK translocation is associated with longer overall survival. Key Words: EML4-ALK, EGFR mutation, Lung cancer, Adenocarcinoma. (J Thorac Oncol. 2012;7: 98 104) Personalized cancer therapy has attracted much attention because more and more oncologic molecules have been researched and specific molecular target treatment strategies have been developed. A subset of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation has a higher response rate with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). 1 In 2007, Soda et al. 2 identified a fusion gene of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) with the echinoderm microtubule-associated protein like 4 (EML4) in NSCLC. EML4-ALK is most often detected in never-smoker or light smoker lung adenocarcinoma patients. 2 6 In the Asian population, the EML4-ALK fusion is detected in 3 to 5% of lung adenocarcinomas 2,6,7 and is also associated with a variety of histological features in lung adenocarcinoma, including acinar pattern, signet-ring cell, and papillary with bronchioloalveolar components. 4,6,8 10 In addition, EML4-ALK occurs in mutual exclusion to Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (K-ras) and EGFR mutations. 2,4,5,11,12 Crizotinib (PF-02341066) is a dual MET/ALK TKI. In a phase I trial, EML4-ALK-positive patients with advanced lung cancer given crizotinib showed favorable treatment response. 13,14 After the phase I dose escalation study, Kwak et al. 13 identified 82 patients with advanced ALK-positive disease from 1500 NSCLC patients for crizotinib treatment. The response rate was 57% (47 of 82), and 27 patients (33%) had stable disease. The high response rate and a good safety profile among patients harboring the EML4-ALK fusion gene have led to the initiation of the phase III clinical trials. Prior studies have mostly focused on the analysis of surgical excision specimens from patients with early stage NSCLC, but there are few reports for NSCLC patients with advanced stage diseases. 2,3,6,9,11,15 In addition, few studies have reported the survival outcome of lung cancer patients with tumors harboring EML4-ALK translocation but without 98 Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012

Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012 EML4-ALK Translocation Predicts Better Outcome crizotinib treatment, and patient numbers in previous studies are relatively small. 4,15,16 To understand the impact of EML4-ALK on clinical treatment outcome of advanced lung adenocarcinoma with wild-type EGFR, we examined EML4-ALK fusion gene in malignant pleural effusions from lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR and analyzed their clinical treatment outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients and Tissue Procurement We prospectively collected pleural fluid samples from consecutive patients who received thoracentesis in the chest ultrasonography examination room of the National Taiwan University Hospital from June 2005 to December 2009. All patients had signed an informed consent for future molecular analyses before thoracentesis was performed. Malignant pleural effusions were confirmed by cytology examination. Some of the samples were previously examined and reported in studies of EGFR mutations. 17 20 This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of National Taiwan University Hospital Research Ethics Committee (Institutional Review Board approval number: 993703238). The World Health Organization pathology classification was used to define lung cancer histology. 21 All lung cancer patients received complete lung cancer staging work-up according to our routine practice, which included computed tomography (CT) of the head, chest, and abdomen and whole body bone scintigraphy. 22 Only patients with measurable tumors on CT were included in this study. We only enrolled lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR for EML4-ALK analysis. Clinical data including demographic information and smoking status were recorded, and imaging studies were collected. Patients who had smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime were categorized as nonsmokers. Those who had smoked 10 or less pack-years were categorized as light smokers. 4 The rest were categorized as heavy smokers. The cancer stages and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) were also recorded. 22,23 The date of diagnosis, all systemic treatments, including chemotherapy and EGFR TKIs, and responsiveness to the treatment were recorded. No patients received crizotinib therapy. Response Evaluation of Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients Systemic chemotherapy included chemotherapy and EGFR TKIs, erlotinib (150 mg/d) (Tarceva; OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Melville, NY) or gefitinib (250 mg/d) (Iressa; AstraZeneca, Wilmington, DE). EGFR TKI was taken as a single agent every day. No concurrent chemotherapy or radiotherapy for the lung tumors was performed during EGFR TKI therapy. Chest radiography every 2 to 4 weeks and a chest CT scan (including the liver and adrenal glands) every 2 to 3 months were performed as routine clinical practice and as needed to monitor the response and progression of the disease. The Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) guidelines (version 1.1) unidimensional method was adopted to evaluate the measurable solid tumors. 24 Overall survival was defined as the period from the date of first-line systemic treatment to the date of death. Collection of Pleural Effusion Fluid Pleural effusion was collected into heparinized tubes. A 10 ml sample of the fluid was centrifuged at 250g for 10 minutes at 4 C, and the cell pellets were frozen. RNA was extracted from cell lysate with a Qiamp RNA Mini Kit (Qiagen) according to the manufacturer s instructions. Total RNA was extracted using Tri-reagent (Molecular Research Center, Inc., Cincinnati, OH) and stored at 80 C until use. Sequencing of EGFR Exons 18 21 and K-ras Exons 2 and 3 We amplified exons 18 21 of EGFR by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with Qiagen OneStep RT-PCR Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). The conditions of RT-PCR have been described previously. 25 The exons 2 3 of K-ras gene was amplified by RT-PCR using the following primers: forward, 5-GGCCTGCT- GAAAATGACTGA-3 and 5-TCTTGCTAAGTCCTGAGC- CTGTT-3. The K-ras reference sequence is based on NM_004985 from the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. PCR amplicons were sequenced with ABI PRISM 3100 (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) in both sense and antisense directions. The specimens with mutations were confirmed in two rounds. Only specimens with the same results identified in both rounds were recorded as mutationpositive. Mutations were also checked against SNP database. Detection of EML4-ALK Fusion Gene After identification of malignant pleural effusion with wild-type EGFR, reverse transcription of the extracted RNA was performed to generate complementary DNA (cdna) according to the previous published method. 15,17 PCR was performed to screen for EML4-ALK fusion cdnas. The primer sets and PCR conditions were adapted from Takahashi et al. 15 RT-PCR was performed using HotStar Taq Master Mix Kits (Qiagen). The RT-PCR primer set used was as in prior reports: 5 -GTGCAGTGTTTAGCATTCTTGGGG-3 (forward primer, on exon 13 of EML4) and 5 -TCTTGCCAG- CAAAGCAGTAGTTGG-3 (reverse primer, on exon 21 of ALK). 2,3,10 The other primer was used to detect other types of fusion transcripts consisting of the upper exons of EML4 and ALK: 5 -GTCAGCTCTTGAGTCACGAGTT-3 (forward primer, on exon 2 of EML4) and 5 -TCTTGCCAG- CAAAGCAGTAGTTGG-3 (reverse primer, on exon 21 of ALK). The RT-PCR conditions used was as described by Takahashi et al. 15 RT-PCR amplicons were purified and sequenced using the Big Dye Terminator sequencing kit (Applied Biosystems) according to the manufacturer s instructions. The different variants were confirmed according to previously published reports. 15,26 The most common variants of EML4-ALK fusion gene were variant 1 with exon 13 of EML4, variant 2 with Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 99

Wu et al. Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012 exon 20 of EML4, and variant 3a/b with exon 6a/b of EML4 fused to exon 20 of ALK, respectively. Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization We prepared 4- m paraffin-embedded histological sections for fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis. To assess the rearrangement of ALK, commercial Vysis LSI ALK Dual Color, Break Apart Rearrangement Probe (2p23) (Abbott Molecular Inc., Des Plaines, IL) was used according to the manufacturer s instructions (Vysis). Briefly, the paraffin-embedded tissue section slides were deparaffinized in xylene (three times, 10 minutes each), followed by two 5-minute washes in 100% ethanol. The sections were treated with pretreatment reagent (Abbott Molecular) at 80 C for 10 minutes, then the sample was allowed to react with protease mixed with a protease buffer. The LSI ALK dual-color probe was used to hybridize the 2p23 band with SpectrumOrange (red) on the telomeric side of the ALK breakpoint and SpectrumGreen on centromeric side of the ALK gene breakpoint (Abbott Molecular). Results were analyzed in a fluorescent microscope (Zeiss AXIO Imager.A1) using the Axio Vision Release 4.5 software. A minimum of 100 nuclei was scored. A FISHpositive case was defined as having more than 15% tumor cells showing separated green and red signals or single red signals identified cells with rearranged ALK. FISH was performed and analyzed by the Pathologist (Y.L.C.) who did not know the EML4-ALK RT-PCR results. Statistical Analysis All categorical variables were analyzed with Pearson s 2 tests, except where a small size (less than five) required the use of Fisher s exact test. The overall survival were plotted by the Kaplan Meier method and compared by the log-rank test. Multivariate analysis for overall survival was performed using the Cox s proportional hazards model. Two-sided p values less than 0.05 were considered significant. All analyses were performed using SPSS version 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). RESULTS Clinical Characteristics A total of 1066 pleural effusions were collected from 743 patients in the chest ultrasonography examination room of the National Taiwan University Hospital during June 2005 to December 2009. There were 650 malignant pleural effusions, which included 588 lung adenocarcinomas, 8 lung squamous cell carcinomas, 7 not otherwise specified NSCLC, 20 small cell lung cancers, and 27 malignancies other than lung cancers. Of the 588 malignant pleural effusions of lung adenocarcinoma, RNA from 14 samples was not sufficient for RT-PCR and sequencing. The RT-PCR and EGFR mutation sequencing success rate was 97.6% (574 of 588). The 574 malignant pleural effusions of lung adenocarcinoma came from 386 patients. Of these, 142 patients harbored wild-type EGFR and 244 patients harbored EGFR mutations. Among the 142 patients with wild-type EGFR, 116 had measurable tumors on CT and sufficient samples for EML4-ALK fusion gene detection and sequencing. These 116 patients were included in this study. There were 62 males (53%) and 54 females (47%). The median age at which lung cancer was diagnosed was 66.0 years (range, 27.9 91.1 years), with 81 non-/light smokers (70%) and 35 heavy smokers (30%). All patients had malignant pleural effusions and were classified as having stage IV disease. 22 Other clinical characteristics of these patients are shown in Table 1. EML4-ALK Fusion Gene Status Of the 116 patients with tumors harboring wild-type EGFR, 39 patients (34%) harbored the EML4-ALK fusion gene. The median age between those with and without EML4- ALK fusion gene were not statistically significantly different (66.1 versus 65.9 years; p 0.593, by Mann-Whitney U test). EML4-ALK gene presence did not differ by gender (female versus male, 37.0% versus 30.6%; p 0.467) or smoking history (non-/light smoker versus heavy smoker, 35.8% versus 28.6%; p 0.449) (Table 1). TABLE 1. Characteristics and EML4-ALK Status of Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients with Wild-Type EGFR Variable No. of Patients EML4-ALK( ) EML4-ALK( ) p Total (N) 116 39 77 Age, median (range) 66.0 (27.9 91.1) 66.1 (27.9 86.7) 65.9 (28.8 91.1) 0.593 a Sex Female 54 20 (51.3%) 34 (44.2%) 0.467 Male 62 19 (48.7%) 43 (55.8%) Smoking Non-/light smoker 81 29 (74.4%) 52 (67.5%) 0.449 Heavy smoker 35 10 (25.6%) 25 (32.5%) ECOG PS 0 1 99 32 (82.1%) 67 (87.0%) 0.475 2 4 17 7 (17.9%) 10 (13.0%) a By Mann-Whitney U test. ECOG PS, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status. 100 Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer

Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012 EML4-ALK Translocation Predicts Better Outcome ALK FISH Results Among the 39 patients with EML4-ALK fusion detected by RT-PCR, 12 patients had adequate paraffin-embedded tumor tissues obtained from surgical resection or biopsy available for FISH assessment. Of these, none of them was pleural effusion cell block. 10 (83%) had tumors with positive ALK FISH. Furthermore, from eight patients who had adequate tumor samples for ALK FISH but whose malignant pleural effusion did not have EML4-ALK fusion genes by RT-PCR, we found seven (87.5%) with negative ALK FISH. The concordance rate between FISH and RT-PCR results was 85% (17 of 20) (Supplemental Table 2, http://links.lww.com/jto/a194). K-ras Mutation Status Because EGFR mutation, K-ras mutation, and ALK alterations are mutually exclusive in lung adenocarcinoma, 12 K-ras analysis was performed for the 77 patients without EML4-ALK fusion gene. There were five patients harboring tumors with K-ras mutations (Supplemental Table 3, http:// links.lww.com/jto/a194). The K-ras mutation rate was 6.5% of the EGFR wild type and EML4-ALK wild type patients. Two were heavy smokers and 3 were nonsmokers. The K-ras mutation rates were not different between heavy smokers (8%, 2 of 25) and non-/light smokers (6%, 3 of 52; p 0.710). Treatments and Overall Survival The median follow-up duration of the 116 patients was 31.7 months at the time of review among the 30 patients (26%) still alive and the 86 patients (74%) had died at that time. The median overall survival was 11.6 months. There were no significant treatment differences between patients with and without EML4-ALK fusion genes (Supplemental Table 1, http://links.lww.com/jto/a194). Twenty-five of 37 patients with EML4-ALK fusion gene and 42 of 77 patients without EML4-ALK fusion gene received platinum-based doublet chemotherapy (64.1% versus 54.5%; p 0.325). Thirty-two patients with EML4-ALK fusion gene and 54 without EML4-ALK fusion gene received second- or subsequent-line therapy (82.1% versus 70.1%; p 0.166). In addition, 21 patients with EML4-ALK fusion gene and 29 patients without EML4-ALK fusion genes received pemetrexed treatment (53.8% versus 37.7%; p 0.096). There was no difference in the use of EGFR TKI (82.1% versus 64.9%; p 0.056). The timing of EGFR TKI treatment in both groups was also not different (p 0.800) (Supplemental Table 1, http://links.lww.com/jto/a194). The difference between overall survival was statistically significant between patients with and without the EML4-ALK fusion genes (median, 14.7 versus 10.3 months; p 0.009) (Figure 1). In addition, univariate analysis showed that patients with ECOG PS 0 1 (13.8 versus 1.4 months; p 0.001) had longer overall survival (Table 2). Although the patients who received EGFR TKIs had longer overall survival than those without EGFR TKI treatment (13.8 versus 8.4 months), the difference did not reach statistical significance (p 0.055). There was no significant difference in overall survival between heavy smokers and non-/light smokers (12.3 versus FIGURE 1. Kaplan Meier survival curve of overall survival of lung adenocarcinoma patients with EML4-ALK (solid line) and without EML4-ALK fusion gene (dashed); the difference was statistically significant (median, 14.7 versus 10.3 months; p 0.009, by the log-rank test). 11.6 months; p 0.488). To clarify the interaction in overall survival between smoking and EML4-ALK fusion gene, we divided the patients to heavy smokers and non-/light smokers. Each group was further stratified by EML4-ALK fusion gene. For the heavy smoker patients, there was no statistical significant difference in overall survival (EML4-ALK ( ) 12.3 months versus EML4-ALK ( ) 8.6 months; p 0.782). For the non-/light smoker patients, the difference in overall survival was statistically significant (EML4-ALK ( ) 16.8 months versus EML4-ALK ( ) 10.3 months; p 0.005) (Supplemental Figures 1a and b http://links.lww.com/jto/ A192http://links.lww.com/JTO/A193). Cox regression model showed that presence of EML4- ALK fusion gene (hazard ratio [HR], 0.53; 95% confidence interval, 0.32 0.87; p 0.011) and having ECOG PS 2 4 (HR, 5.88; 95% confidence interval, 2.98 11.58; p 0.001) statistically significantly affect overall survival (Table 2). Differences Between Variant 1 and Nonvariant 1 of EML4-ALK Fusion Gene Of the 39 patients with EML4-ALK fusion gene, 24 had variant 1 and 15 with nonvariant 1 genes (two variant 2, six variant 3a, five variant 3b, and two other variant types). The median age between variant 1 and nonvariant 1 patients were not statistically significantly different (median: 68.8 versus 57.8 years; p 0.279, by Mann-Whitney U test). There were no significant differences by gender (p 0.129) and ECOG PS (p 0.216, by Fisher exact test) between patients with variant 1 and nonvariant 1 EML4-ALK fusion genes. Compared with nonvariant 1 patients, patients with variant 1 EML4-ALK were more likely to be heavy smokers (37.5%, 9 of 24, versus 7.1%, 1 of 15; p 0.057, by Fisher s exact test) (Table 3). Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 101

Wu et al. Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012 TABLE 2. Multivariate Analysis of Prognostic Factors for Overall Survival of Adenocarcinoma Patients with Wild-Type EGFR Factors No. of Patients Median OS (mo) Univariate Analysis p Multivariate Analysis HR (95% CI) Sex Female 54 11.3 Male 62 12.8 0.641 1.31 (0.75 2.29) 0.336 Age ( 65 vs. 65) 65 52 14.1 65 64 9.6 0.341 0.97 (0.62 1.53) 0.899 Smoking Non-/Light smoker 81 11.6 Heavy smoker 35 12.3 0.488 0.76 (0.42 1.38) 0.367 ECOG PS 0 1 99 13.8 2 4 17 1.4 0.001 5.88 (2.98 11.58) 0.001 EML4-ALK Negative 77 10.3 Positive 39 14.7 0.009 0.53 (0.32 0.87) 0.011 EGFR TKI use No 34 8.4 Yes 82 13.8 0.055 0.60 (0.35 1.00) 0.052 EGFR TKI, epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor; ECOG PS, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status; OS, overall survival. p TABLE 3. Characteristics and EML4-ALK Status of Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients with Wild-Type EGFR Variable Variant 1 Nonvariant 1 p Total (N) 24 15 Age, median 68.8 (27.9 86.7) 57.8 (46.2 89.3) 0.279 a (range) Sex Female 10 (41.7%) 10 (66.7%) 0.129 Male 14 (58.3%) 5 (33.3%) Smoking Non-/light 15 (62.5%) 14 (93.3%) 0.057 b smoker Heavy 9 (37.5%) 1 (6.7%) smoker ECOG PS 0 1 18 (75.0%) 14 (93.3%) 0.216 b 2 4 6 (25.0%) 1 (6.7%) a By Mann-Whitney U test. b By Fisher s exact test. EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor; ECOG PS, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status. For overall survival, the patients with variant 1 EML4- ALK fusion gene did not survive longer than those with nonvariant 1 (14.1 versus 16.8 months; p 0.869). DISCUSSION For lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR, this study adds to the body of knowledge that EML4- ALK is a favorable factor for overall survival. In addition, there were no significant differences in clinical factors and survival outcome between patients with tumors harboring variant 1 and those harboring nonvariant 1 EML4-ALK fusion gene. This may move us toward understanding the full impact of EML4-ALK on NSCLC. In the IPASS study, the PFS of gefitinib in patients with wild-type EGFR tumors is 1.5 months. 1 Other reports showed the overall survival in lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR as 12 to 14 months. 27,28 This study shows that EGFR TKI-treated lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR had 1.3 months of PFS and 13.2 months of overall survival, which is consistent with prior reports. 1,27,28 Shaw et al. 4 reported that the median survival was 20 months in patients harboring the EML4-ALK fusion gene and 16 months in patients without both the EGFR mutation and EML4-ALK fusion gene. The difference was not statistically significant. This study showed that there is a significant difference in the overall survival between patients with and without the EML4-ALK fusion gene (HR, 0.53; p 0.011). Compared with the study by Shaw et al., 4 this study enrolled more patients, especially those with the EML4-ALK fusion genes. In addition, the present cohort study enrolled patients with advanced diseases and had longer median follow-up duration (31.7 months). EML4-ALK may have important implications in overall survival of EGFR wild-type lung adenocarcinoma. Prospective clinical trials are necessary to confirm this finding. In this study, the K-ras mutation rate in EML4-ALK negative patients was only 6.5% and cannot explain the poor survival of these patients. The result was similar to the other countries in Eastern Asia, where the frequency of K-ras mutation has been reported as less than 10%. 29 31 The K-ras mutation rates of heavy smoker lung adenocarcinoma patients was 8%, which is consistent with the result of the study by Wu et al. 29 done in Taiwan. In addition, there was no 102 Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer

Journal of Thoracic Oncology Volume 7, Number 1, January 2012 EML4-ALK Translocation Predicts Better Outcome significant difference in K-ras mutation between the heavy smokers and non-/light smoker in this study. This was consistent with prior studies that showed K-ras mutations in lung adenocarcinoma were not significantly associated with any specific clinical characteristics, including sex and smoking status in Taiwan. 29,32 Camidge et al. 33 reported that, in comparison with ALK-negative patients, ALK-positive patients had a significantly longer progression-free survival on pemetrexed. However, no overall survival analysis was reported. In this study, 21 (53.8%) of the patients with EML4-ALK fusion genes and 29 (37.7%) of those without received pemetrexed treatment. All 21 EML4-ALK positive patients received pemetrexed in the third-, fourth-, or subsequent-line therapy. The longer overall survival in patients with EML4-ALK may have resulted from pemetrexed treatment or an indolent clinical course, as previously reported. 34 However, clinical trials are necessary to understand the overall survival benefit of pemetrexed to lung adenocarcinoma patients with EML4-ALK fusion genes. In this study, 82 patients with EGFR TKI use had a trend for improved overall survival. Most of the patients used EGFR TKI in the first-line (60%) or second-line (24%) treatment. The reason for the benefit of EGFR TKI in overall survival is not clear and needs to be clarified in future studies. The incidence of EML4-ALK is around 5% in unselected populations of NSCLC patients. 2,3,5,6,10,15 This study enrolled all Asians, and the patients all had advanced-stage lung adenocarcinoma with malignant pleural effusions and wild-type EGFR. In the study by Shaw et al., 4 the frequency of EML4-ALK was 33% among non-/light smokers without EGFR mutations. In this study of all wild-type EGFR tumors, the incidence of EML4-ALK was 35.8% for non-/light smokers. These results are comparable. Although prior studies has shown that patients harboring EML4-ALK were significantly younger than those without EML4-ALK, 2,4 this study did not show a similar result. This may arise from the difference in patient enrollment. Samples in prior studies mostly came from patients who underwent tumor resection. 2,3,5,9,15 However, in this study, all enrolled patients were not eligible for surgery because of their advanced-stage disease of malignant pleural effusion. The age of the patients in this study may be older than the prior reports. It is also possible that RT-PCR method detects a slightly different population from those ALK-positive patients identified by FISH method. RT-PCR is a rapid diagnostic method for detecting EML4-ALK gene arrangement, as shown in prior studies conducted in Asia. 2,5,10,15,35 RT-PCR can provide sequence data defining the types of different variants of EML4-ALK fusion genes. 26 It can be applied to samples with limited number of cells, such as malignant pleural effusion, which are not suitable for FISH studies. Although it is very sensitive in detecting mutant transcript, RT-PCR must be multiplexed and novel fusion partners other than EML4 may be missed. For example, one patient in this study had tumor with FISH positivity but negative in RT-PCR. In addition, the extracted RNA from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sample may be degraded and not good enough for RT-PCR. 26 FISH was the standard test for enrollment of the patients in clinical trials with crizotinib. 13 But, both false-negative and falsepositive results have been observed. 36 The commercially available probe provided an advantage for research. However, in clinical practice, there were only small tissue samples for the NSCLC patients with advanced stage. The residual samples after clinical diagnostic use might be too small to perform FISH. Recently, Paik et al. 37 showed that EML4-ALK rearrangement detection using immunohistochemical (IHC) staining correlated well with FISH. IHC staining could be applied broadly in routine biopsy tissue diagnosis in clinical practice. However, prospective study is needed to compare the usage of RT-PCR, FISH, and IHC. This study evaluate the difference between patients with variant 1 and those with nonvariant 1 EML4-ALK fusion gene. For the 39 patients harboring EML4-ALK fusion genes, there is no obvious difference in clinical characteristics including gender, age, smoking history, and performance status, between patients with variant1 and nonvariant 1 of the EML4-ALK fusion gene. Survival outcome of the two groups is also identical. Kwak et al. 13 showed no difference in crizotinib treatment response based on the EML4-ALK fusion transcripts. The result of this study is consistent with the study by Kwak et al. Because of the heterogeneous fusion variants, enrolling more patients in a study may be needed to identify the clinical characteristics of patients with different variants of EML4-ALK fusion gene. 13 Although crizotinib showed a high response rate and a good safety profile among patients harboring the EML4-ALK fusion gene, 13 no patients in the present study took crizotinib. Prospective clinical trials are necessary to clarify the impact of crizotinib on overall survival. There are limitations of the present cohort study. First, we only collected patients with malignant pleural effusions, resulting in selection bias. These results may not be generalized to all patients with stage IV NSCLC. However, most patients with advanced stage of lung adenocarcinoma had only small tissue samples. The tissue samples were mostly used for clinical diagnosis, leaving limited residual samples for molecular diagnosis. In addition, lung adenocarcinoma patients frequently have malignant pleural effusions. Thoracentesis is an easy way to collect malignant cells for molecular studies in contrast to other invasive techniques used to biopsy the primary tumor or its metastases in clinical practice. 17 Second, we only validated the result of RT-PCR by FISH in a limited number of patients. Even though we would like to expand the study, because the availability of cancer tissue samples in this cohort were limited, we were unable to perform FISH in most patients. In conclusion, EML4-ALK fusion gene is associated with longer overall survival of lung adenocarcinoma patients with wild-type EGFR mutations. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Supported by a research grant from the National Science Council, Taiwan (98-2314-B-002-117-MY3). The authors thank the Department of Medical Research of National Taiwan University Hospital and NTU Center for Copyright 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 103

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