Patients
Among 405 consecutively examined patients, EGFR mutations were detected in 113 patients (Figure 1). Five patients decided to undergo only the best supportive care, and 48 did not experience relapse after local therapy, including surgery, radiotherapy, or chemoradiotherapy. Sixty patients harbored activating EGFR mutations, and seven were administered osimertinib as TKI-naïve therapy. The remaining patients were treated with TKIs, except for osimertinib. The T790M substitution was detected in 29 of 46 (63%) patients who underwent rebiopsy. Table 1 outlines the demographic characteristics of each group. Thirty-one patients presented with postoperative recurrence, and four patients presented with post-irradiation recurrence. During the overall study period, 33 patients received chemotherapy. During TKI-naïve treatment, 13 patients received gefitinib, 32 received erlotinib, and eight received afatinib.
Rebiopsy outcomes
To identify patients harboring the T790M substitution, all types of clinically available rebiopsies were performed numerous times (Table 2). Tissue biopsy was repeated a maximum of four times. During the initial tissue biopsy, the detection rate (DR) was 67.8%, with a sensitivity of 80.8%. After that, the DR was approximately 30%, with a cumulative sensitivity (CS) of 77.4–79.3%. In terms of liquid biopsy, the maximum frequency of rebiopsy was 10. During the initial liquid biopsy, the DR was 8.1%, with a sensitivity of 13%. During each liquid biopsy, the median DR was 8.6%, ranging from 0% to 25%, and the median cumulative sensitivity was 18.9%, ranging from 16.7% to 20.6%. In total, we performed 141 rebiopsies, including both tissue and liquid biopsies, from 46 patients (Table 3). Among these patients, 29 (63%) harbored the T790M substitution. The T790M substitution was detected in 35 biopsies, with a CS of 39.3%, including 24 tissue biopsies with 77.4% and 11 liquid biopsies with 19%, respectively. Regarding the detection of the T790M substitution, significant differences between tissue and liquid biopsy were observed based on Fisher’s exact test (P < 0.0001).
Positive clinical factors in patients harboring the T790M substitution
Our main purpose was to elucidate clinical features of positivity for the T790M substitution through clinically available mutational analysis. We considered the target patients with rebiopsy as 53 patients treated with TKIs except osimertinib, comprising the full analysis set (Figure 1). Because logistic regression analysis can identify the strength of association between each clinical factor and the primary outcome, we analyzed 53 patients treated with EGFR-TKIs other than osimertinib. The results of logistic regression analyses are shown in Table 4. Six variables had p-values > 0.15 based on univariate analyses. Multivariate analysis indicated that significant clinical features associated with patients harboring the T790M substitution were as follows: exon 19 deletions in the original mutation, termination of TKIs owing to the detection of new lesions, and gefitinib in TKI-naïve treatment.
Positive factors associated with the T790M substitution upon rebiopsy
Because logistic regression analysis can find the degree of association between each clinical factor and one of the secondary outcomes, 89 rebiopsies were performed among patients harboring this mutation. Table 5 shows the background characteristics of patients harboring the T790M substitution upon rebiopsy. Logistic regression analyses revealed 16 variables with p-values < 0.15 based on univariate analyses. We constructed four sets of multivariate models comprising variables that were not correlated with each other, as follows. Model 1 consisted of five variables, i.e., original mutation, brain metastases, enlargement of tumor size, mutation site at initial diagnosis, or minor site metastases, and the AUC was 0.916. Model 2 consisted of original mutation, enlargement of tumor size, mutation site at initial diagnosis, minor site metastases, or new brain metastases, and the AUC was 0.911. Model 3 comprised variables, i.e., type of biopsy, brain metastases, mutation site at initial diagnosis, or minor site metastases, and the AUC was 0.881. Model 4 comprised brain metastases, mutation site at initial diagnosis, enlargement of tumor size, or detection of new tumor lesion, with an AUC of 0.824. The best model selected through ROC curve analysis is Model 1, as shown in Table 6. Multivariate analysis showed that the significant associations detected with the T790M substitution upon rebiopsy among patients harboring T790M were as follows: co-detection of the original mutation, co-occurring brain metastases, tumor enlargement of ≥ 12 mm, or involvement of minor site metastases, which includes metastases of the skin, kidney, adrenal glands among other organs, as well as ascites and lymphangiosis carcinomatosa.
Positive factors associated with the T790M substitution upon liquid biopsy
Because logistic regression analysis can ascertain the degree of association between each clinical factor and the other secondary outcomes, 58 liquid biopsies were performed. The background characteristics of the group are shown in Table 7. The univariate logistic regression analyses obtained 11 variables. We also constructed four sets of multivariate models composed of variables that were not correlated with each other, as follows. Model 1 consisted of three variables, namely, mutation site at initial diagnosis, bone metastases, or detection of new tumor lesion, with an AUC of 0.936. Model 2 consisted of mutation site at initial diagnosis, enlargement of tumor size, or detection of new tumor lesion, and the AUC was 0.879. Model 3 consisted of mutation site at initial diagnosis, brain metastases, or detection of new tumor lesion, and the AUC was 0.885. Model 4 comprised mutation site at initial diagnosis, original mutation, or detection of new metastatic organ, and its AUC was 0.904. Among these models, the best model, Model 1, is shown in Table 8. Based on multivariate analysis, detecting the T790M substitution via liquid biopsy among patients harboring this mutation indicated the following: involvement of bone metastases or new tumor lesions ≥ 4.