Prof Egbert Smit speaks to ecancer about new oncogenic drivers in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This discussion covers developments that were due to be presented at the ELCC conference, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof Smit focuses on the novel driver cMET and the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). He talks about the uses of the TKIs that are already available and that are in development, explaining why these may provide a good alternative to chemotherapy or PD-L1 inhibitors for the treatment of metastatic NSCLC in patients with these mutations. He also describes the side effects of TKIs in this setting, the most prominent of which is oedema, and discusses the problems surrounding treatment resistance.

Prof Smit concludes by commenting that he thinks researchers will discover more targetable oncogenes as the capacity to interrogate tumours at the genomic level increases.

This programme has been supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Bristol Myers Squibb.