{"id":53967,"date":"2025-09-26T10:37:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T08:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/?p=53967"},"modified":"2025-09-30T10:55:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T08:55:48","slug":"how-alk-fusion-variants-affect-lung-cancer-and-treatment-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/news\/how-alk-fusion-variants-affect-lung-cancer-and-treatment-response\/","title":{"rendered":"How ALK Fusion Variants Affect Lung Cancer and Treatment Response"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"182\" data-end=\"541\">Lung adenocarcinoma is the most common form of lung cancer. It develops from glandular cells that line the alveoli and produce mucus or other substances. In around five percent of patients, a genetic alteration is present: the fusion of the <em data-start=\"423\" data-end=\"429\">EML4<\/em> and <em data-start=\"434\" data-end=\"439\">ALK<\/em> genes. This fusion can occur in different variants, each influencing tumor growth in distinct ways.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"543\" data-end=\"768\">Until now, patients with <em data-start=\"568\" data-end=\"578\">EML4-ALK<\/em> fusions were treated the same way, regardless of the specific variant. A recent study shows that these differences can play a critical role in disease progression and response to therapy.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"770\" data-end=\"1088\">Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), together with colleagues from Stanford University, demonstrated that the two most common variants behave very differently: variant V3 produces more aggressive tumors than variant V1 and responds less effectively to certain targeted drugs (ALK inhibitors).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1090\" data-end=\"1346\">Analysis of the largest dataset of patients with <em data-start=\"1139\" data-end=\"1149\">EML4-ALK<\/em>-positive lung cancer to date confirmed these findings: different variants often co-occurred with distinct additional genetic alterations, further affecting disease course and treatment response.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1348\" data-end=\"1566\">\u201cOur results show that not all ALK fusions are the same,\u201d says DZL researcher Roc\u00edo Sotillo from the DKFZ. \u201cKnowing the specific variant could help tailor treatments more precisely to each patient in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1568\" data-end=\"1725\">The study highlights that a more differentiated consideration of genetic driver mutations may become an important key for personalized lung cancer therapy.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1727\" data-end=\"1867\">The work was supported by the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Worldwide Cancer Research, and the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1727\" data-end=\"1867\"><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dkfz.de\/en\/news\/press-releases\/detail\/not-all-alk-fusions-act-the-same-variants-influence-treatment-success-in-lung-cancer\">Not all ALK fusions act the same: Variants influence treatment success in lung cancer - German Cancer Research Center<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New insights into ALK fusions in lung cancer could help tailor therapies more precisely to the specific variant in the future. Researchers at the DKFZ have investigated the differences between the most common variants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":53963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[246],"class_list":["post-53967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-lung-cancer-lc"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53971,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53967\/revisions\/53971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}