Medical Program: Understanding the Importance of RET Mutation as a Primary Oncogenic Driver

Announcer:
Welcome to Closing the Gaps in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer on ReachMD, sponsored by Lilly.

On today’s program, we’ll hear from Dr. Edward Kim, who’s the Chair of Solid Tumor Oncology and Investigational Therapeutics at the Levine Cancer Institute Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Kim joins us to discuss the importance of RET mutations in non-small cell lung cancer. Let’s hear what he has to say now.

Dr. Kim:
When looking at the landscape of non-small cell lung cancer and looking at all the different markers we measure, including EGFR, ALK, ROS1, PD-L1, TRK fusions, BRAF,  we’re now seeing the emergence of other markers that may have therapies linked to them.

One of those is the RET fusion that exists. This fusion is seen in probably 1–2% of patients. It can be a little higher depending. And we’re seeing treatments now being tested that may end up in the clinic.

One of those is a drug that is an oral drug called selpercatinib. This is also known as LOXO-292. There was recent data that showed a very high response rate, over 80%, in patients who had this RET fusion.

There have also been other studies testing small molecules in various settings with patients who have either RET fusions or RET mutations.  These include cabozantinib, vandetanib, lenvatinib, sunitinib—there’s also an RXDX-105, BLU-667—many different treatments that have been looked at to assess in patients with non-small cell lung cancer that have these RET fusions or RET mutations.

I’m very hopeful that we’ll have an approved drug and this will be one of the biomarkers that we test for standardly in patients with non-small cell lung cancer because it will further create more precision medicine strategies for our patients.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Edward Kim shedding light on the significance of RET mutations when defining a therapeutic approach to non-small cell lung cancer. To revisit any part of this discussion and to access other episodes in this series, visit ReachMD.com/NSCLC, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge.