The expanded indications of HER2-targeted therapies by monitoring of circulating tumor cells.

Abstract

385 Background: Despite success in the HER2 targeted therapies for metastatic gastric cancer patients, the conventional assessment of HER2 status in tumor tissue specimens is still under debate. Methods: Twenty-seven patients with metastatic gastric cancer were treated according to histological HER2 status. On-chip sorting system was used for the isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) before treatments. Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) was assessed by the vimentin and cytokeratin. DNA was extracted from CTCs and applied to the gene panel with 409 cancer related genes. The fluorescence signal intensity > 50 is set to be a threshold value for distinguishing between positive and negative HER2 on CTCs. Results: Thirteen patients (48%) with HER2 positive in tumor tissues (Group A) were treated with cytotoxic agents and trastuzumab (anti HER2 antibody) while 14 patients (52%) were negative and treated with cytotoxic agents. In these 14 patients, 8 patients (30%) showed HER2 positive (Group B) and 6 patients (22%) displayed HER2 negative (Group C) on CTCs. Increased expression of EMT was seen in Group A and B, indicating they are likely to have metastasis. Group B showed worse PFS than others (13.8 M in A, 7.0 M in B and not reached in C, p=0.012), suggesting Group B could be a candidate for expand indication of Trastuzumab. Genomic analysis showed some mutated genes involved in the PI3K signaling pathway which associated with drug resistance. Conclusions: Monitoring of circulating tumor cells leads to the expand indication of the HER2 targeted therapies in patients with metastatic gastric cancer.