Aberrations in fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFR) are common in multiple cancers, making them highly promising therapeutic targets. Optimal application of FGFR inhibitors requires a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence and types of FGFR mutations, which may vary significantly among ethnicities. Such analysis has not been conducted in Chinese pan-cancer. This study investigated the prevalence and the distribution of FGFR aberrations in Chinese cancer patients.
We screened genomic profiling results of plasma or tissue samples from 10,582 patients spanning 16 cancer types: lung, breast, gastric, hepatobiliary, pancreatic, soft tissue sarcoma, esophageal, ovarian, colorectal, head and neck, renal, endometrial, osteogenic sarcoma, cervical, melanoma and lymphoma.
Of the 10,582 patients screened, we observed 745 patients with FGFR aberrations, revealing an overall prevalence of 7.03%. Approximately, 3.78% harbored FGFR amplification, 2.73% had other mutations and 0.53% had fusions. A majority (56.78%) of patients had FGFR1 aberrations, followed by 17.72%, 14.43% and 2.82% with FGFR3, FGFR2 and FGFR4 aberrations, respectively. Furthermore, 8.46% of patients with aberrations in more than 1 FGFR gene. The most common type of aberrations was amplification (53.69%), followed by other mutations (38.79%) and fusions (5.64%). Concurrent FGFR fusion and amplification occurred in 1.88% patients. Of the 16 cancer types, except for head and neck cancer, osteogenic sarcoma, renal carcinoma, and lymphoma, all other cancer types had FGFR aberrations detected with colorectal cancer (31.03%) having the highest prevalence. Other relatively commonly affected cancers included: gastric cancer (16.78%), breast cancer (14.27%) and esophageal cancer (12.68%). FGFR1 amplification was the most common genetic alteration in CRC, breast cancer and lung cancer. FGFR2 amplification was more commonly seen in gastric cancer. Of the patients with FGFR aberrations, 57 patients, spanning 9 cancer types, had fusions. Among them, breast cancer patients are more likely to have concurrent FGFR amplification than other cancer types (p < 0.001).
Our study provides a comprehensive view of FGFR aberrations in Chinese cancer patients.
Yang Gao.
Key Research and Development Program of Hunan province (2016JC2039).
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.