RET inhibitor selpercatinib demonstrates durable responses in tumor-agnostic population (Multiple cancers)

Medical Xpress / University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center / The Lancet Oncology ^ | Sept. 13, 2022 | Vivek Subbiah et al

[ConservativeMind]

The highly selective RET inhibitor selpercatinib was well-tolerated and achieved durable objective responses across multiple tumor types in the Phase I/II LIBRETTO-001 trial.

Results from the tumor-agnostic cohort of patients show an objective response rate (ORR) of 44% for the targeted therapy.

"The findings from this study demonstrate the potential for RET inhibitors to benefit patients across many tumor types," said Vivek Subbiah, M.D.

RET fusions occur when a portion of the chromosome containing the RET gene breaks and rejoins with another piece of chromosome, creating a fusion protein that drives cancer development. Relatively rare across cancer types, these mutations are found in just 5-10% of thyroid cancers and 1-2% of non-small-cell lung cancers. Across all other cancer types, they occur with a frequency of less than 1%. However, RET-altered cancers metastasize to the brain at a high frequency.

Eligible patients for the trial had disease progression on or after previous systemic therapies or had no satisfactory therapeutic options, and all patients had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of 0-2.

The primary tumor diagnoses included 12 patients (27%) with pancreatic, 10 (22%) with colon, four (9%) with salivary and three (7%) with either sarcoma or unknown primary cancer. No more than two patients had any other primary diagnosis, and 14 total tumor types were represented.

Of the patients in this cohort, 5% had a complete response, 39% had a partial response, and 34% had stable disease. The median duration of response was 24.5 months and median progression-free survival was 13.2 months.

The ORR in patients with pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancers was 54.5% and 20% respectively, and responses were observed in all tumor types.

According to Subbiah, these results across tumor types underscore the need for detecting these rare cancers.

[ConservativeMind]

These are the cancers that quickly go to the brain, so identifying them and getting them this therapy should be a big help.

[ConservativeMind]

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