Common Mutations Could Lead to Targeted Treatment for Patients with Brain Metastases

Currently, scientists have a limited understanding of how brain metastases genetically evolve from their primary tumor, making them difficult to treat. However, research presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology’s Annual Meeting may have identified a connection between genetic mutations and treatment options that could offer patients improved outcomes.

OncLive®, CURE®’s sister publication, spoke with Dr. Priscilla Brastianos, director of the Central Nervous System Metastasis Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, about how CDK pathway alterations could lead to more targeted treatment.

Transcription:

In a study that we had published a few years ago, we showed that brain metastases often genomically diverge from their matched primary tumors, meaning that brain metastases often harbor clinically actual alterations that are exclusive to the brain metastases and not detected in the matched primary tumor sample. And what we showed (in this study) was that in more than half of the cases of brain metastasis samples that we analyzed, CDK pathway alterations were very frequent.

And that led to the design of this genomically-guided brain metastasis trial, where we are targeting based on the alterations that are detected in the brain metastasis. We hope that this trial will demonstrate that CDK inhibitors in patients that have CDK pathway alterations will show promise and will have efficacy and will lead to improved survival outcomes for this patient population.