Mass. General Study Defines a New Genetic Subtype of Lung Cancer

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

A report from investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center has defined the role of a recently identified gene abnormality in a deadly form of lung cancer. Tumors driven by rearrangements in the ROS1 gene represent 1 to 2 percent of non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC), the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. The researchers show that ROS1-driven tumors can be treated with crizotinib, which also inhibits the growth of tumors driven by an oncogene called ALK, and describe the remarkable response of one patient to crizotinib treatment. “ROS1 encodes a protein that is important for cell growth and survival, and deregulation of ROS1 through chromosomal rearrangement drives the growth of tumors,” says Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, of the MGH Cancer Center – co-lead author of the paper. “This finding is important because we have drugs that inhibit ROS1 and could lead to the sort of dramatic clinical response we describe in this paper.” Learn more at http://bit.ly/xDj2Tw