Evaluation of the Feasibility and Clinical Relevance of Liquid Biopsy in Patients With Suspicious Metastatic Lung Cancer

Summary

Lung cancer is diagnosed at metastatic stage in 60% of the cases. For these patients, first-line treatment is based on histology and molecular characterization of non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Thus, quality and quantity of tumor tissue are crucial to determine the appropriate treatment (targeted therapies, chemotherapy and immunotherapy).

However, in routine practice, tissue quality and quantity can be limited (25%), resulting in the need for tumor rebiopsy for molecular analysis. Therefore, lung cancer patients often experience substantial delays before treatment initiation that may be associated with worse patient experience of subsequent cancer care and poorer clinical outcomes.

"Liquid biopsies" (LB) are used to detect genomic alterations in cell-free circulating DNA (cfDNA). Since very recently, they are routinely used in reference centers for the detection of EGFR-mutations when tissue is not sufficient for molecular characterization. Importantly, the feasibility and clinical relevance of systematic liquid biopsies in routine practice has never been evaluated in patients with suspicious advanced lung cancer.

Investigators hypothesize that using systematic LB in patients with clinical suspicion of metastatic lung cancer may reduce time-to-treatment initiation and avoid tissue rebiopsy.

Investigators performed a retrospective study including 250 NSCLC patients treated in a tertiary Cancer Center and in the University Hospital of Lyon, France. The mean time-to-appropriate frontline treatment initiation (TTI) was 42+/-22.5 days. With the use of LB at the time of first consultation, the investigators believe it is possible to reduce the mean TTI down to 33 days (21% reduction in TTI) in the overall population with suspicious metastatic lung cancer, including a 50% and 40% reduction in TTI for EGFR/ALK/ROS1/BRAF V600E subgroups and KRAS/LKB1/ERBB2/c-MET/BRAF non V600E subgroups, respectively.

Investigators therefore designed a "real-life" randomized study to evaluate the feasibility and clinical relevance of LB to decrease the TTI, which may in turn improve patients' outcome. Genomic analyses of circulating cfDNA will be performed using a robust and highly sensitive technology (InVision®), that profiles the presence of genomic aberrations in a panel of 35 genes including mutations, insertion/deletions and rearrangements, including all actionable alterations required to initiate the appropriate first-line therapy (EGFR-, ALK-, ROS1 and BRAF V600E).

Conditions

• Metastatic Lung Cancer

Interventions

DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

InvisionFirst® molecular panel

During the first visit, liquid biopsy will be performed using the InVisionFirst® panel. Cytological or histological sampling will be planned. According to InVisionFirst® results, treatment will be initiated: * regardless of cytological/histological and tissue molecular analysis in case of EGFR, BRAF V600E-mutation, ALK- or ROS1-rearrangement identified on InvisionFirst® panel. * regardless of molecular characterization performed on tissue sample in case of ERBB2-, BRAF non V600E-, c-MET-, KRAS-,LKB1-, NTRK and/or RET mutation on InVisionFirst® panel. Treatment will be based on pathology results and if appropriate on PD-L1 level of expression. * for patients with none of the previous alterations, treatment will be initiated after obtaining pathology results and genomic characterization from the tumor tissue analysis.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Centre Leon Berard

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

DIAGNOSTIC

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-04-10

Primary Completion

2023-07-01

Completion

2023-07-01

Countries

• France

Study Locations