The following article features coverage from the IASLC North America Conference on Lung Cancer 2019 meeting. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage.

The molecular profiles of patients with KRAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) differ among patients from various racial groups, according to research presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019) in Chicago, Illinois. Hispanics with the disease had better survival outcomes than Caucasians, even if immunotherapy was given for shorter time periods.1

Jacqueline Aredo, a medical student at the Stanford Cancer Institute in California, and colleagues evaluated 186 patients who were treated for KRAS-mutant NSCLC with immunotherapy. Of the patients included in the trial, 78.5% (146 patients) were Caucasian, 12.9% (24 patients) were Asian, 6.5% (12 patients) were Hispanic, and 2.2% (4 patients) were African-American. The researchers found that fewer Asian patients had a positive smoking history when compared to the other groups (45.8% vs 91%-100%; P <.001). 

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There are notable racial differences in the molecular profiles of patients with KRAS-mutant NSCLC,” the authors wrote. There were no significant different in disease histology or stage across the subgroups. The researchers found that there were more KRAS G12D mutations observed in the Hispanic patients compared with the other subsets (41.7% vs 12%-33%; P =.007). More Caucasians had KRAS G12C mutations (39.7% vs 8%-25%; P =.058), but no differences were observed with KRAS G12V mutations across all subgroups (P =.653). There was no difference across the patient groups regarding PD-L1 positivity. Upon multivariable analysis, Hispanic patients had an improved overall survival compared with Caucasian patients (hazard ratio, 0.30, 95% CI: 0.10-0.86, P=.026).

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While no significant difference in overall survival across patient groups from initiation of immunotherapy, Hispanic patients had much shorter immunotherapy treatment duration than Caucasians did (hazard ratio, 2.79: 95% CI 1.03-7.25, P=.044).

Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of the IASLC NACLC 2019 meeting by visiting the conference page.

Reference

  1. Aredo J, Padda S, Kunder C, et al. Evaluating racial differences in KRAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer. Presented at: International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019); October 10-12, 2019: Chicago, Illinois. Abstract OA03.07

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IASLC North America 2019 Lung Cancer Racial Disparities