The impact of the tumor shrinkage by initial EGFR inhibitors according to the detection of EGFR-T790M mutation in patients with non-small cell lung cancer harboring EGFR mutations

BACKGROUND: The EGFR-T790M mutation is clinically detected using re-biopsy in approximately 50% of patients with acquired resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who harbor EGFR mutations. However, little is known about the population of NSCLC patients who develop acquired resistance due to the T790M mutation. In this study, we focused on the emergence of the T790M mutation and analyzed patients refractory to initial EGFR-TKIs with successful re-biopsy samples. METHODS: Seventy-eight advanced NSCLC patients with EGFR mutations who had successful re-biopsy samples after resistance to initial EGFR-TKI treatment were enrolled at 5 institutions in Japan. We validated the association between the emergence of the T790M mutation and their clinical profiles. RESULTS: Thirty-nine patients tested positive for T790M and 39 tested negative in the re-biopsy samples. The objective response rate to initial EGFR-TKIs was higher in patients with the T790M mutation than in those without the mutation (89.7% versus 51.2%, p < 0.001). Moreover, there was a significant difference in the maximal tumor shrinkage rate relative to baseline in T790M-positive tumors compared with T790M-negative tumors (42.7% versus 24.0%, p = 0.001). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the maximum tumor shrinkage rate was a significant predictive factor for the detection of the T790M mutation (p = 0.023, odds ratio 1.03, 95% confidence interval 1.00–1.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our retrospective observations suggested that the maximum tumor shrinkage rate with initial EGFR-TKI treatment might be one of the promising predictive biomarkers for emerging refractory tumors with the EGFR-T790M mutation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-018-5153-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.