Systematic analysis of overall survival and interactions between tumor mutations and drug treatment

BACKGROUND: Few exceptional responses in cancer treatment were attributed to a genetic predisposition of the tumor. METHODS: We analyzed a cohort of 3105 patients from 12 different cancer types and systematically sought the existence of a correlation between overall survival and the interaction of 21 antineoplastic treatments with 6 tumor mutations. RESULTS: We identified a single significant correlation resulting in increased overall survival from temozolomide in lower-grade glioma with IDH1 R132H mutations. The trend could not be attributed to either the treatment or the mutation alone. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression demonstrated that this interaction stood as an independent prognostic predictor of survival. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest infrequent instances of exceptional responses ascribable to tumor genomics yet corroborate the existence of an interaction of temozolomide with IDH1 mutations in lower-grade glioma. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13045-016-0249-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.