Dr. Garon Discusses Driver Mutations in SCLC

Edward B. Garon, MD, director of Thoracic Oncology at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California, Los Angeles, discusses driver mutations in small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

In light of the immunotherapeutic advancements in SCLC, there are patients with driver mutations who are not often eligible for enrollment on these trials. Druggable targets are not as plentiful in SCLC as they are in non—small cell lung cancer, Garon explains. The only 2 subsets for which frontline therapies are approved are ALK- and EGFR-positive SCLC. ROS1 is a mutation that is seen in these patients, but Garon notes that there lacks comparative frontline data, as this is a fairly rare mutation in this tumor type. There also lacks frontline data for BRAF-mutated patients with SCLC.

Currently, most of the focus is on the ALK- and EGFR-positive cohorts of SCLC, Garon says. The use of crizotinib (Xalkori) is going down, with most clinicians beginning their patients on alectinib (Alecensa).