This study assessed the prevalence of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangements in US oncology practices. The cohort included 19,895 eligible patients with a mean age 68.5 years, majority ever-smokers (85.5%) and from community centers (92.2%). The overall ALK rearrangement prevalence was 2.6%. Positivity rate varied by histology and smoking status; it was the highest among non-smoking patients with non-squamous histology (9.3%). Differences in ALK status also varied by age and race, with young patients (18–39 years) having a higher prevalence (21.6%) vs. older patients (age ≥55 = 2.2%); Asian patients had a prevalence of 6.3%. Patients that were positive for other mutations or rearrangements had a lower ALK positivity rate (0.5%) and patients positive for PD-L1 had a rate of 3.0%. Conclusion: The likelihood of finding an ALK translocation was highest in younger patients and nonsmokers; however, age and smoking history were not discriminative enough to exclude testing based on cl..... READ ARTICLE

Oncotarget DOI:10.18632/oncotarget.28114

Authors: Allen T. Craig, Xiao Y., Yang B., Croix D., Abraham A., Redpath S., Engstrom-Melynk J., Shah R., Madala J., Bernicker E. H.