ALK-positive Lung Cancer Video Perspectives

In this video playlist, Christian Rolfo, MD, PhD, professor and associate director for clinical research at the Center for Thoracic Oncology of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Tisch Cancer Institute, discusses:

• how ALK-positive lung cancer accounts for approximately 5% of lung cancer cases and can be identified through both tissue and liquid biopsies;
• that while ALK-positive lung cancers are common in patients who are nonsmokers and who are around 50 years of age, it is important to test all patients with lung cancer because ALK-positive disease occurs outside of these groups. “My advice is don’t focus on the typical clinical considerations; go for [testing] all the patients, because it’s important that we are testing all of them”;
• how disparities that exist in lung cancer biomarkers may be driven by the lack of testing;
• available treatments in ALK-positive lung cancers: crizotinib (Xalkori; Pfizer), alectinib (Alecensa; Genentech), brigatinib (Alunbrig; Takeda) and lorlatinib (Lorbrena; Pfizer);
• that while there are some ALK inhibitors in the pipeline, there is a “need to know how to sequence the inhibitors that we have”;
• the biggest challenges in treating ALK-positive lung cancer, including recurrence, identifying mechanisms of resistance and the treatment of these mechanisms; and
• future research needs in ALK-positive lung cancer, including efforts to understand patients’ immune microenvironment and sequencing treatment with ALK inhibitors.