Perioperative crizotinib in a patient with stage IIIB ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer: a case report

We present a case of a 43-year-old female patient with clinical stage IIIB (T3N2M0) anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive adenocarcinoma of the lung. Surgery was not performed initially because of multiple mediastinal lymph nodes invasion, although the mass was technically resected. With the assessment of upfront multidisciplinary consultation, administration of neoadjuvant crizotinib was selected to induce the downstaging and facilitate the subsequent surgical treatment. After 10 weeks of neoadjuvant crizotinib treatment, a partial response was achieved and the tumor could be radically resected. There were no sever toxic effects and treatment-related surgical delay during the whole neoadjuvant crizotinib therapy. The patient then successfully underwent video-assisted single port thoracoscopic right upper lobectomy and lymphadenectomy. Concurrent chemotherapy and radiotherapy were applied postoperatively. Perioperative targeted therapy demonstrated good curative effect in this case, and no recurrence was observed at the clinic 8 months after surgery. In this case, the safety and effectiveness of neoadjuvant crizotinib and subsequent surgery are preliminarily proved. We here intend to investigate the optimal setting of neoadjuvant targeted therapy combined with minimally invasive surgery and postoperative adjuvant therapy, inspire more potential targeted treatment based schedules and to apply these strategies in treating patients with locally advanced mutant-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).