Clinical relevance of comprehensive genomic profiling for advanced cancers in India.

Abstract

e18718 Background: Comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assay, a next-generation sequencing (NGS) based technique generates a large amount of genomic information about a cancer. While CGP is increasingly used in low-middle income countries (LMIC), little is known about the extent to which these benefits patients. Here we describe the proportion of patients with advanced cancer in India who eventually receive targeted therapy for an actionable genetic alteration identified on CGP assays. Methods: This was a multicenter, retrospective cohort study in adult patients with advanced non-hematological malignancies who underwent a CGP test. We excluded patients who were identified to have a genetic alteration that has a well-validated targeted standard-of-care therapy (e.g.; EGFR exon 18, 19, 21 mutations for lung cancer, HER2 amplification for breast cancer). Participating oncologists provided anonymized information of consecutive CGP test reports through an online data capture form. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the proportion of patients with subsequent targeted therapy. Results: During 2019-20, 12 medical oncologists provided CGP reports for 297 patients; 235 met the inclusion criteria. Fourteen different testing panels were used by the oncologists. Among the study cohort, 45% were male. Eighty nine percent underwent tumor tissue biopsy and 11% had liquid biopsy. The most common cancers were lung (19%), breast (18%), pancreatobiliary (9%) and colorectal (6%). Patients received a median of 2 lines (range: 0-5) of prior systemic therapy. Based on the CGP assay, 35 patients (15%) received targeted therapy. Among them, 29% was for HER2 amplification (non-breast cancer), 26% for PIK3CA mutation, 11% for HER2 or EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation (lung cancer), 5% each for BRAF mutation (non-melanoma), EGFR mutation (non-lung cancer) and MET mutation. Conclusions: In a LMIC setting, 15% patients received a targeted therapy based on CGP assay. This is comparable to reports from high income countries. Considering the limited access to new drugs and clinical trials, this finding requires further analysis.