A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics have conducted a head-to-head comparison of five leading treatments for anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) non-small cell lung cancer. It is the first study to analyze two new drugs, lorlatinib and brigatinib, outside of clinical trials. The findings, just published in the journal Lung Cancer, could help patients and physicians make more informed decisions about treatment.
ALK+ lung cancer, in which the ALK gene fuses with another gene, makes up about 4% of lung cancer diagnoses and often affects patients with little to no smoking history. The mutation leads to the creation of a faulty protein that drives the cancer cells to grow and multiply. Treatment typically involves ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), a type of targeted therapy that prevents the growth and spread of cancer cells by blocking the faulty protein.
But with several TKIs now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the initial, or first-line, treatment of ALK+ lung cancer, choosing the best option can be a challenge. Current guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) equally recommend four TKIs for first-line treatment of advanced ALK+ lung cancer, but clinical trials may not fully capture how they perform in broader groups of patients.