Cancer medicine
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Comparative Study
Patients with ROS1 rearrangement-positive non-small-cell lung cancer benefit from pemetrexed-based chemotherapy.
ROS1 gene-rearrangement in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients has recently been identified as a driver gene and benefited from crizotinib treatment. However, no data are available for ROS1-positive NSCLC about chemotherapeutic options and prognostic data. We investigated pemetrexed-based treatment efficacy in ROS1 translocation NSCLC patients and determined the expression of thymidylate synthetase (TS) to provide a rationale for the efficacy results. ⋯ The TS mRNA level was lower in patients with ROS1-positive than ROS1-negative patients (264 ± 469 × 10-4 vs. 469 ± 615 × 10-4 , P = 0.03), but similar with ALK-positive patients (264 ± 469 × 10-4 vs. 317 ± 524 × 10-4 , P = 0.64). Patients diagnosed with ROS1 translocation lung adenocarcinoma may benefit from pemetrexed-based chemotherapy. TS mRNA level enables the selection of therapeutic options for ROS1 translocation patients.