The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting is one of the most influential clinical oncology meetings and provides a forum for the presentation of clinical trials that can change future practice and research.  This year, ASCO will be held from June 3-7 2022, releasing more than 2,800 abstracts covering different diseases and research areas. Geneseeq will participate in the ASCO with eight interesting topics spanning novel biomarkers for immunotherapy, early detection, minimal residue disease as well as the impact of psychological distress on the disease outcome of the patients.

The following is a summary of our studies that will be presented at ASCO 2022.

 

Poster 1 (Abstract 2591) Efficacy of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Harboring ERBB2 Exon 20 insertions and non-ERBB2 Exon 20 insertions.

Section title: Developmental Therapeutics

In collaboration with the clinicians from Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, the study investigated the efficacy of ICIs and immune characteristics in NSCLC patients harboring ERBB2 exon20 insertions and non-exon20ins mutations. The clinical outcomes, PD-L1 expression, mutational burden and CD4+ T cell density were different between patients with ERBB2 exon20 insertions and non-exon20ins mutations.

 

Poster 2 (Abstract 2023) Dynamic monitoring of cerebrospinal fluid circulating tumor DNA to identify unique genetic profiles of brain metastatic tumors and better predict intracranial tumor response in non-small cell lung cancer patients with brain metastases: A prospective cohort study.

Section title: Central Nervous System Tumors

In this prospective study (NCT 03257735), the genetic profiles of CSF-derived ctDNA, plasma ctDNA, and primary extracranial tumor samples were explored using GeneseeqPrime panel in NSCLC patients with brain metastases.  Serial CSF ctDNA sequencing revealed the unique genetic profiles of intracranial lesions, which could be exploited to better predict the intracranial outcomes and track clonal evolution in NSCLC patients with brain metastases.

 

Poster 3 (Abstract 2546) Early circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) kinetics using a tumor-naive assay as a predictive biomarker in early phase immunotherapy (IO) clinical trials.

Section title: Developmental Therapeutics

In collaboration with the clinicians from Princess Margaret Cancer Center, we studied the association between early ctDNA kinetics and clinical outcomes in advanced solid tumor patients treated in early phase IO trials by using the tumor- naïve 425-gene GeneseeqPrime panel. This study showed that tumor- naïve ctDNA assays may be useful to identify early treatment benefits in phase I/II trials with IO.

 

Poster 4 (Abstract 3533) Clinical and genomic distinction of Class1/2/3 BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer (CRC) and differential prognosis.

Section title: Gastrointestinal Cancer

This multicenter retrospective study employed Geneseeq panels to investigate the mutational profiles of 2,118 CRC patients with baseline tumor samples. A cBioPortal cohort of 471 metastatic CRC patients was also employed for survival analysis.  The results revealed distinct clinical and genetic features among CRC patients with BRAF mutations of different classes.

 

Poster 5 (Abstract 3037) An ultra-sensitive assay using cell-free DNA fragmentomics for multi-cancer early detection.

Section title: Developmental Therapeutics

In this study, multiple plasma cfDNA fragmentomic features were extracted from the whole-genome sequencing data from a multi-cancer cohort consisted of early-stage primary liver cancer, colorectal cancer and lung cancer to build the base models. Each base model implemented five machine learning algorithms for model training and the optimal base models were used to establish the final multi-dimensional model through ensemble stacked machine learning. The assay reached ultrasensitivity and accuracy for multi-cancer early detection, shedding light on leveraging cfDNA fragmentomics for early screening in clinical practice

 

Poster 6 (Abstract 3038) Utilization of Cell-Free DNA Fragmentomics in Minimal Residual Disease Detection for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.

Section title: Developmental Therapeutics

Another study utilizes the fragmentomic profiling of plasma cfDNA to develop an ultra-sensitive and affordable fragmentomic model for MRD detection in NSCLC patients. Despite being limited by the relatively small cohort size, our model has shown great sensitivity in predicting patient recurrence, therefore exhibiting a great
potential to guide adjuvant therapy decisions.

 

Poster 7 (Abstract 9550) Camrelizumab plus apatinib for patients with advanced mucosal melanoma: a prospective single-arm study

Section title: Melanoma/Skin Cancers

In this prospective, single-arm study (ChiCTR1900023277), patients with
inoperable stage III-IV or recurrent/metastatic mucosal melanoma and Eastern
Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0-1 was enrolled. Patients
received camrelizumab 200 mg once every 2 weeks and apatinib 500 mg once daily
until disease progression or intolerable toxicity. The study showed that camrelizumab plus apatinib showed a favorable object response rate and disease control rate in patients with advanced mucosal melanoma, with an acceptable safety profile.

 

Oral presentation (Abstract 12001) Correlation of psychological distress with quality of life and efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with newly diagnosed stage IIIB-IV NSCLC

Section title: Symptoms and Survivorship

Chronic stress refers to the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system under the stimulation of physiological and psychological stressors. There is increasing evidence that chronic stress impairs the body’s immune system function, but whether it affects the efficacy of immunotherapy has not yet been clinically proven. This study is the first study to confirm that chronic stress affects the efficacy of immunotherapy in clinical patients. The team is also further studying its specific regulatory mechanism in in vivo and in vitro studies. This series of studies has important translational value and is useful for improving the survival and quality of advanced lung cancer patients.