Future novel treatment approaches may be able to address acquired MET drivers in patients with EGFRm NSCLC4-7
Understand what’s driving their progression. Tissue rebiopsy at the first sign of progression.
What’s driving progression?
Which mutations or changes lead to progression?
MET overexpression and amplification are the most common drivers of progression on third-generation EGFR TKIs1-3
Histologic transformation (eg, SCLC) is the second most common acquired driver1-3*
Patients treated with a third-generation EGFR TKI
generally will acquire new drivers of progression2
MET overexpression or amplification4
of patients
Up to ~34% of patients can have high levels of MET overexpression and/or amplification (IHC90+ and/or FISH10+)4
Acquired abnormal activation of the MET pathway—including protein overexpression and gene amplification—is believed to be a dysregulator in carcinogenesis and is associated with a poor prognosis3,8
Histologic transformation (eg, SCLC)2
of patients
Histological changes—such as the transformation from NSCLC to SCLC—require a different treatment approach9
NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) recommend considering a tissue rebiopsy at time of progression to rule out SCLC transformation and understand drivers of progression.10
*Other acquired drivers of progression include: KRAS amplification/mutation (3%-4%), PIK3CA (2%-3%), BRAF V600E (2%), ALK fusion (1%-2%), BRAF fusion (≤1%), HER2 amplification (≤1%), HER3 amplification (≤1%), and RET fusion (≤1%).2
Why tissue biopsy?
How to identify MET overexpression and amplification
Tissue rebiopsy is critical in identifying acquired MET-driven progression and is more sensitive than plasma alone2
Drivers of progression, like MET amplification, were detected in 31% more cases with tissue biopsy than liquid biopsy2
These results are from an analysis of 193 patients with advanced EGFRm NSCLC who had progressed on a third-generation EGFR TKI, including 58 patients who had both tissue and liquid biopsies*
MET overexpression is only detected by tissue biopsy/IHC3
Liquid biopsy relies on ctDNA and is not suitable for detection of protein-based biomarkers such as MET overexpression
In the TATTON study, NGS failed to detect approximately 50% of patients with MET overexpression or amplification11
IHC and FISH on tissue rebiopsy are the most effective techniques to identify acquired MET drivers after 1L progression
Capture the full picture. Tissue rebiopsy at the first sign of progression.
ctDNA=circulating tumour DNA; FISH=fluorescence in situ hybridisation; IHC=immunohistochemistry; NGS=next-generation sequencing.
*Molecular testing was performed via NGS and FISH.2
Ongoing investigations
Ongoing clinical investigations
Combining MET and EGFR TKIs may be beneficial in treating EGFRm NSCLC after first-line progression
A number of ongoing clinical studies are investigating MET and EGFR TKI combinations in patients with advanced EGFRm NSCLC who have acquired MET drivers of progression following first-line treatment with a third-generation EGFR TKI4-7