Plasma genotyping is an emerging approach for the identification of genetic alterations mediating resistance to ana-plastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)–targeted therapy. The authors reviewed plasma genotyping and imaging findings to assess the correla-tion between circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) burden and disease burden in patients with ALK-positive lung cancer. The authors analyzed 97 plasma specimens from 75 patients with ALK-positive lung cancer to identify ALK and non-ALK alterations. In patients with ALK-positive lung cancer, the maximum plasma alteration AF and maximum ALK alteration AF correlate with the extrathoracic burden of disease and are more predictive of tumor burden com-pared with the ALK fusion AF alone. READ ARTICLE
Cancer DOI:10.1002/cncr.33118
Authors: Eric W. Zhang , Ibiayi Dagogo-Jack MD, Anderson Kuo MD, PhD, Marguerite M. Rooney BSc, Alice T. Shaw MD, PhD, Subba R. Digumarthy MD