Clinical utility of a comprehensive genomic profiling test for patient with advanced biliary tract cancer.

Background: Biliary tract cancer (BTC) comprises a heterogeneous group of malignancies with poor prognosis because of the limited treatment options. With the recent advances of next generation sequencing technologies, comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) tests have been widely introduced into daily clinical practice.
Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective, multicenter, observation cohort study. The genomic and clinical data of 85 BTC patients, who underwent CGP testing from August 2021 to September 2023, were analyzed.
Results: There were 62 (73%) cases in which treatment recommendations were raised during expert meetings, including 34 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), 20 extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ECC) and 8 gall bladder carcinoma (GBC). The drug accessibility rate of the BTC patients was 15.3% (13 cases): ten ICCs, two ECCs, and one GBC. Five ICC patients (three male and two female) with the FGFR2 fusion gene were treated with pemigatinib. Those patients who received a genomically matched therapy had significantly longer median overall survival than those patients who not received. (n = 13; not reached [95% CI not reached-not reached] vs n = 72; 8.6 months [95% CI 6.6-10.0]; hazard ratio 0.24 [95% CI 0.12-0.49], p = 0.013). The median observation period of pemigatinib treatment was 15.4 months (range 10.1-27.4). The responses were classified as PR in three patients, SD in one patient and PD in one patient. The median progression free survival is 9.0 months. No patient had grade 3/4 AEs requiring discontinuation of the treatment.
Conclusion: The drug accessibility rate of ICC is high and pemigatinib is effective and well-tolerated in ICC patients harboring FGFR2 gene fusions.
Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: Yasuhito Tanaka received honoraria from AbbVie GK, Gilead Sciences, Inc, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., ASKA Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd., OTSUKA Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, AstraZeneca, Eisai and HU frontier. He received research funds from AbbVie GK, FUJIREBIO Inc, Sysmex Corp, GlaxoSmithKline PLC., Gilead Sciences, Inc., Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K. and OTSUKA Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Ethical approval: This study was conducted following the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, and with the approval of the Ethics Committee of Kumamoto University (Approval No. 480).
(© 2024. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Japan Society of Clinical Oncology.)