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Cetuximab plus FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, and irinotecan) is the preferred first-line therapy for RAS and BRAF wild-type (RBWT) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). To counter chemotherapy-induced side effects, use of maintenance therapy is suggested. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of cetuximab maintenance therapy in patients after effective completion of first-line induction therapy. This prospective study enrolled untreated patients with mCRC RBWT who received first-line cetuximab plus FOLFIRI therapy. Following this, patients with treatment response either entered observation (stop treatment) or maintenance treatment 1 (cetuximab plus irinotecan) groups. After 6–12 cycles of maintenance treatment 1, patients entered maintenance treatment 2 (cetuximab only). If a patient progressed on maintenance 2, cetuximab plus FOLFIRI was reintroduced. The primary end point was failure-free survival (FFS), whereas the secondary end points included disease control rate (DCR), objective remission rate (ORR), and progression-free survival (PFS). Safety events were also evaluated. Among 79 enrolled patients, 72 completed first-line treatment effectively (DCR 91.1%, ORR 63.9%) and 44 entered maintenance 1 [median PFS 1 (mPFS, maintenance 1) 6.1 months, 95% confidence interval (CI) 6.0–6.2; DCR 56.8%; ORR 22.7%]. Of them, 21 entered maintenance treatment 2 (mPFS2 8.7 months, 95% CI 3.3–14.1; DCR 28.6%; ORR 4.8%). Median FFS (mFFS) was significantly longer in the maintenance 1 group compared with the observation group [12.7 vs. 3.0 months; hazard ratio (HR) 0.202, 95% CI 0.111–0.369; P

Jinhuo Lai,1 Bin Du,1 Yao Wang,1 Riping Wu,1 Zongyang Yu2 1Department of Oncology, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou 350001, Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Medical Oncology, Fuzhou General Hospital of PLA, Fuzhou 350025, Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China Background: Lung cancer remains a major global health problem, which causes millions of deaths annually. Because the prognosis is mainly determined by the stage of lung cancer, precise early diagnosis is of great significance to improve the survival and prognosis. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has been recognized as a sensitive and specific biomarker for the detection of early- and late-stage lung cancer, and next-generation sequencing (NGS) of ctDNA has been accepted as a noninvasive tool for early identification and monitoring of cancer mutations. This study aimed to assess the value of NGS-based ctDNA analysis in detecting gene mutations in lung cancer patients.Methods: A total of 101 subjects with pathological diagnosis of lung cancer were enrolled, and blood samples were collected. ctDNA samples were prepared and subjected to NGS assays.Results: There were 31 cases harboring 40 gene mutations, and EGFR was the most frequently mutated gene (27.72%). In addition, there were seven cases with double mutations and one case with triple mutations, with EGFR p.T790M mutation exhibiting the highest frequency.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that NGS of ctDNA is effective in detecting gene mutations in lung cancer patients, and may be used as a liquid biopsy for lung cancer, which facilitates the development of precision treatment regimens for lung cancer. Keywords: lung cancer, next-generation sequencing, circulating tumor DNA, ctDNA, gene mutation&nbsp

Trial Information Click here to access other published clinical trials. Lessons Learned The efficacy of second-line treatment for advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) without a sensitizing driver gene mutation is still unsatisfactory. The combination of apatinib and chemotherapy improved progression-free survival in the second-line therapy of advanced NSCLC without a sensitizing mutation. This study offers a new treatment strategy for second-line treatment of such patients but requires confirmation in a larger multi-institutional trial. Background This study explored the efficacy and safety of apatinib combined with single-agent chemotherapy versus single-agent chemotherapy in the second-line treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) without driver mutations. Methods In this double-arm, open label, exploratory clinical study, we enrolled patients with unresectable locally advanced or advanced NSCLC without driver mutations that had progressed following first-line chemotherapy. The subjects were allocated into an experimental group and a control group by 2:1. The experimental group received apatinib combined with four cycles of docetaxel or pemetrexed until disease progression, intolerable toxicity, or discontinuation at the patient' request. The control group only received four cycles of docetaxel or pemetrexed. The primary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), disease control rate (DCR), and safety. Results Thirty-seven patients were enrolled. The efficacy of 33 patients was evaluated. The median PFS was 5.47 versus 2.97 months, the DCR was 95% versus 73%, and the objective response rate (ORR) was 27% versus 9% in the experimental versus control group. The OS was still under follow-up. The most common adverse effects included hypertension, hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR), and fatigue. Conclusion Apatinib combined with single-agent chemotherapy may be a novel option for second-line treatment of advanced NSCLC

SummaryHere we developed a tool called Breakpoint Identification (BreakID) to identity fusion events from targeted sequencing data. Taking discordant read pairs and split reads as supporting evidences, BreakID can identify gene fusion breakpoints at single nucleotide resolution. After validation with confirmed fusion events in cancer cell lines, we have proved that BreakID can achieve high sensitivity of 90.63% along with PPV of 100% at sequencing depth of 500× and perform better than other available fusion detection tools. We anticipate that BreakID will have an extensive popularity in the detection and analysis of fusions involved in clinical and research sequencing scenarios.Availability and implementationSource code is freely available at https://github.com/SinOncology/BreakID.Supplementary informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The association between opportunistic infection (OI) and anaemia among HIV-infected patients remains to be studied. We investigated the prevalence and risk factors of anaemia in hospitalised HIV-infected patients to reveal the association between OI and anaemia. We conducted a retrospective study of HIV-positive hospitalised patients from June 2016 to December 2017 in Mengchao Hepatobiliary Hospital of Fujian Medical University. Patients’ information on socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were carefully collected. The comparison of anaemia prevalence between groups was conducted withχ2test. A logistic regression model was carried out to analyse the predictors of anaemia. The total prevalence of anaemia in hospitalised HIV-infected patients was 55.15%. The prevalence of mild, moderate and severe anaemia was 41.42%, 11.08% and 2.64%, respectively. Predictors independently associated with anaemia were: CD4 counts P= 0.003), CD4 counts 50–199 cells/μl (OR: 6.303, 95% CI = 1.874–21.203,P= 0.003), co-infection with tuberculosis (TB) (OR: 2.703, 95% CI = 1.349–5.414,P= 0.005) or Penicillium marneffei (PM) (OR: 7.162, 95% CI = 3.147–15.299,P< 0.001). In Fujian, China, more than half inpatients with HIV were anaemic, but severe anaemia is infrequent. Lower CD4 counts, co-infection with TB or PM were independent risk factors for anaemia. Chinese HIV patients especially with TB, PM infection and low CD4 level should be routinely detected for anaemia to improve therapy.

9030 Background: Currently,EGFR-TKIs are widely accepted as the standard treatment for EGFR- mutant advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, acquired resistance is inevitable. Combination therapy is considered as a strategy to overcome the resistance to EGFR-TKIs. Anlotinib, a novel multi-targeting, small-molecule TKI, has shown active to suppress tumor angiogenesis and growth. However, there is still a lack of evidence supporting the use of EGFR-TKIs in combination with anlotinib for the treatment of NSCLC until now. A multi-center, single-arm, phase II clinical trial was therefore designed to examine the efficacy and safety of EGFR-TKIs combined with anlotinib for treatment-naïve, advanced NSCLC patients, and unravel the possible mechanisms. Methods: This study was conducted in 14 research centers in Fujian, China. The main eligibility criteria were stage IV or relapsed nonsquamous NSCLC with EGFR mutations (exon 19 deletion,, and L858R), ECOG score 0-2,and age 20 to 75 years and no previous systemic treatment. Patients with asymptomatic brain metastases were admitted.Eligible patients were given gefitinib (250 mg QD) or icotinib (125 mg TID) in combination with anlotinib (10 mg per day, on days 1‒14; 21 days per cycle) until disease progression. The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS) and safety, and the secondary endpoint is overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR).Peripheral blood was sampled pre-treatment, once every two months during treatment and after disease progression, and T790M mutation was detected in plasma ctDNA using a droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) assay. Results: Of 60 patients enrolled (August 2, 2018 to May 28, 2020). As of February 1, 2021, 37 patients (61.7%) experienced PFS events and 10 (16.7%) died. The ORR was 78.3%, and the DCR was100%.Median PFS was 13.0 months (95%CI,10.7-15.3).The 5 most common treatment-related adverse events included rash (63.3%), fatigue (55.0%), hypertension (48.3%), diarrhea (33.3%) and hand-foot syndrome (30.0%), and grade 3 adverse events included hypertension (5.0%), rash (1.67%), hypertriglyceridemia (1.67%), vomiting (1.67%) and elevated ALT (1.67%); no grade 4 adverse events or drug-related deaths were observed. Peripheral blood samples were collected from 36 patients pre-treatment, and 30.6% were identified with low-frequency de novo T790M mutations, with the mutation-allele frequency (MAF) ranging from 0.01% to 0.28%. Conclusions: The combination of the first-generation EGFR-TKIs and anlotinib shows impressive ORR and DCR, and acceptable toxicity in treatment-naïve advanced NSCLC patients with activating EGFR mutations, and we observed a high proportion of patients harboring de novo EGFR T790M mutations in this study. Clinical trial information: NCT03720873.

Lung cancer is leading cause of cancer death in the world. Chemotherapy is currently one of the standard treatments for lung cancer. Gemcitabine is a pyrimidine nucleoside drug which has been approved by FDA to treat lung cancer. However, acquired resistance inevitable develops after Gemcitabine treatment, limiting clinical efficacy. Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells were treated with Gemcitabine and cell apoptosis and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression were analyzed by flow cytometry. LLC mouse model was established to analysis the proportion and programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) expression of CD8 + T cells. Anti-tumor effect by treating with Gemcitabine and anti-PD-1 antibody was measured through in vivo LLC mouse model. Gemcitabine treatment induces tumor cell apoptosis and PD-L1 expression. Further study showed that Gemcitabine treatment also increases CD8+ and CD4+ T cells proportion, PD-1 and PD-L1 expression in LLC mouse model. Combination therapy with Gemcitabine and αPD-1 not only has strong anti-tumor effect, but also could inhibit postsurgical recurrence of LLC. Our findings demonstrated that the combination therapy of Gemcitabine and αPD-1 is an effective therapeutic strategy for lung cancer.

e21029 Background: A number of studies have shown that tumor cells expressing PD-L1 correlate with a better prognosis of immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC). However, there were few studies on the immune cells that expressing PD-1 or PD-L1 affect the clinical outcome of patients with NSCLC. Therefore, further research is needed Methods: A total of 336 tumor tissues from patient with non-small cell lung cancer were collected and divided into two cohorts, discovery cohort (174 patients) and validation cohort (162 patients). We used multiplex IHC to identify and quantify CD8, CD57, CD68, CD163, PD-1 and PD-L1 positive rate in tumor tissues, and analyzed its relationship with clinical prognosis. Results: Both PD-1 and PD-L1 were detected on CD8+, CD57+, CD68+, and CD163+ immune cells, but the positive rate were different. PD-1 was higher on cytotoxic T cells (CD8+PD-1+) and PD-L1 was higher on macrophages and cytotoxic T cells (CD68+PD-L1+ and CD8+PD-L1+). By undifferentiated clustering analysis in discovery cohort, the survival rate of tumors with more immune cells expressing PD-1 or PD-L1 was worse. Univariate analysis using X-tile plots to generate the optimum cut off score for all features revealed that immune cells expressing PD-1 or PD-L1 were adverse factors of clinical prognosis of patients with NSCLC, and this result was also confirmed in the validation cohort. Conclusions: In 336 non-small cell lung cancer cases, the expression characteristics of PD-1 and PD-L1 on tumor-infiltrating immune cells were related to survival of patient. In this study, high level of PD-1 and PD-L1 expression on immune cells were associated with lower survival rate, and biomarker characteristics based on this analysis probably enables us to better guide clinical treatment

Lung cancer is the largest cause of morbidity and mortality among tumor diseases. Traditional first-line chemotherapeutic drugs are frequently accompanied by serious side effects when used to treat tumors, thus, novel drugs with reduced toxic effects may improve a patients’ quality of life. Icariin, an extract of herba epimedii, has been demonstrated to exhibit multiple antitumor effects with low toxicity. In the present study, cell cycle analysis, apoptosis assays, DAPI staining, CCK8 assays, xenograft tumor models, mitochondrial membrane potential analysis, western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR were performed to determine the molecular mechanism underlying icariin activity in the human lung adenocarcinoma cell lines, A549 and H1975. The results showed that icariin reduced proliferation of A549 and H1975 cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner in vitro to a greater degree than the control BEAS-2B cells, and this was associated with increased apoptosis, but not with cell cycle progression. In vivo experiments showed that icariin treatment significantly decreased proliferation of H1975 cells in a xenograft mouse model. Mechanistically, icariin activated the mitochondrial pathway by inhibiting the activation of the PI3K-Akt pathway-associated kinase, Akt, resulting in the activation of members of the caspase family of proteins, and thus inducing apoptosis of A549 cells. Taken together, the results revealed that icariin has anti-cancer properties in lung cancer in vitro and in vivo without any noticeable toxic effects on normal lung epithelial cells. Icariin in combination with conventional anti-cancer agents may be an effective therapeutic strategy for treatment of lung carcinoma.

Id1 and NF-κB are highly expressed in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Whether they have a synergistic role in the carcinogenesis of OSCC is unclear. The current study was designed to demonstrate the synergy of both Id1 and NF-κB in the underlying disease mechanisms of OSCC using in vitro and in vivo animal models. Id1 and NF-κB strengthened the expression of both CD133 and BMI-1 in OSCC cell cultures. CD133(+) and BMI-1(+) keratinocytes from OSCC tissues and cell cultures initiated the growth of xenograft tumors in SCID/Beige mice. Id1 and NF-κB regulate the expression of CD133 and BMI-1 in an additive or synergistic manner in OSCC, which is associated with the generation of naïve and self-renewable keratinocytes and initiate the growth of xenograft tumors in vivo.

51 Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a highly heterogeneous disease. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has been a research hotspot in molecular tumor profiling. In advanced GC patients, malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and ascites provide a wealth of tumor cells that can be investigated. The aim of this study is to investigate fusion landscape in advanced GC. Methods: A multicenter study in China was initiated from Aug. 2016, and GC patients have been enrolled as of Aug. 2018. To determine the fusion frequency in GC, we analyzed data from 371clinical GC cases, each of which had results from next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based 381 genes panel assay, analogous to the index patient. Results: Of this entire cohort, 61 patients (16.44%) were identified with fusions, including TMEM45B-FGF3 (3), AXIN1-SMPD3 (3), B3GNTL1-ERBB2 (2), ERBB2-LAMA3 (2), ERBB2-ACLY (2), TRIM24-BRAF (2), ARHGEF1-CD79A (2), FGFR4-UIMC1 (2), MSH2-TTC7A (2), SMARCA4-LDLR (2), GON4L-RIT1 (2), AKT1-CPSF2 (2), GATA6-COLEC12 (2), RICTOR-EFNA5 (2), KAT6A-PLAT (2), ROCK1-CCDC178 (2), HBS1L-MYB (2), SLC30A2-ARID1A (2), MSI2-BIRC5 (2), NOTCH3-UCA1 (2), PIK3C2B-KISS1 (2), RICTOR-OSMR (2), FGFR2-MIR5694 (2), FGFR2-FGFR1 (2), MAN2A2-BLM (2), EGFR-MED15 (1), EML4-ALK(1), GOPC-ROS1 (1), FXR2-TP53 (1), NF1-PSMD11 (1), IRS2-PRKCI (1), FGFR2-KIAA1217(1), FGFR2-TACC2 (1), FGFR3-TACC3 (1). ERBB2, BRAF, EGFR, ALK and ROS1 fusionswere seen in 18.03% (11/61) of advanced Chinese gastric cancer fusion landscape patients. Conclusions: Advanced Chinese gastric cancer fusion landscape is rich, ERBB2, BRAF, EGFR, ALK and ROS1 fusions are rare but potentially druggable in TKIs. Detection of ERBB2, BRAF, EGFR, ALK and ROS1 fusions should be part of comprehensive profiling panels to determine TKIs and direct appropriate combination therapeutic strategies.

e13538Background: Currently, with the advances in detection techniques, such as next generation sequencing (NGS), more and more rare or atypical EGFR mutations had been identified. Such as exons 18...

e13539Background: Screening of c-mesenchymal-epithelialtransition (MET) gene fusions in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients enables the identification of the patients likely to benefit from...

e21197Background: Systemic chemotherapy is still as the standard treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without driver gene mutation. However, the efficacy of second-line treatme...

e13537Background: BRAF fusions are emerging treatment targets for melanomas and other solid tumors. The frequency of BRAF fusions and targeting potential in NSCLC, which occurs rarely in Caucasian ...