A Multi-center Prospective Observational Biomarker Study on EGFRm+ Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Patients With Leptomeningeal Metastasis

Leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) is one of the disastrous events when managing advanced Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) due to a grave prognosis. Although intrathecal (IT) chemotherapy and brain and/or spinal axis irradiation show some effects for LM in advanced NSCLC, the prognosis is still poor with median survival less than 12-14 weeks. Epidermal growth factor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) showed to be effective for LM in selected NSCLC patients in some retrospective research. Our single-center prospective research indicated that the incidence of EGFR sensitive mutations (EGFRm+) in NSCLC-LM patients was high and EGFR-TKIs showed a survival benefit for LM in EGFRm+ NSCLC patients. A multi-center prospective observational biomarker study will be started in 11 lung cancer center based on our single-center prospective research result. The aims of the study are to find predictive biomarkers for LM in advanced NSCLC, to establish EGFR-TKIs based comprehensive treatment for appropriate EGFRm+ LM cases, and to establish effective clinical assessment criteria for NSCLC-LM EGFR-TKIs treatment.