Dr. Liu on the Rationale for the ARROW Trial in RET Fusion+ NSCLC

Stephen Liu, MD, an associate professor of medicine, director of thoracic oncology, and director of developmental therapeutics at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the rationale for the ongoing phase 1/2 ARROW trial (NCT03037385) in RET fusion–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Patients with RET fusion–positive NSCLC tend to have adenocarcinoma, be non-smokers, and have less robust responses to immunotherapy than patients without oncogenic drivers, says Liu. As such, this subset of patients represents a group in need of novel therapies in NSCLC, Liu explains.

Pralsetinib (Gavreto) was approved by the FDA in September 2020 for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic RET fusion–positive NSCLC based on findings from the ARROW trial, in which pralsetinib induced a 57% overall response rate and a 5.7% complete response rate in this patient population. Updated findings from the ARROW trial, which were presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, reported that pralsetinib continued to demonstrate robust and durable antitumor activity in patients with RET fusion–positive NSCLC, as well as other advanced solid tumor types.

Notably, the addition of pralsetinib to the NSCLC armamentarium offers patients with RET fusions a highly selective and effective agent that is well tolerated, concludes Liu.