Project description:
Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a rare but aggressive tumor. However, about 16% of cases, harbor genetic alterations in the FGFR2 receptor. The success of specific FGFR2 inhibitors, such as pemigatinib, is however limited due to the emergence of resistance mutations.
In this study, researchers investigated the efficacy of the drug lenvatinib in CCA patients and "patient-analog" cell lines. Lenvatinib is already approved for other cancers and showed promising results in this study in patients with FGFR2 mutations. In contrast to the specific inhibitors, lenvatinib was effective due to its more flexible binding even in patient-analog celllines and in a patient with a proven resistance mutation in FGFR2 after progression under pemigatinib.
Lenvatinib could therefore represent a new therapeutic option for CCA patients with FGFR2 mutation in whom a resistance mutation has occurred.
Publication:
Stephan Spahn, Fabian Kleinhenz, Ekaterina Shevchenko, Aaron Stahl, Yvonne Rasen, Christine Geisler, Kristina Ruhm, Marion Klaumuenzer, Thales Kronenberger, Stefan A. Laufer, Holly Sundberg-Malek, Khac Cuong Bui, Marius Horger, Saskia Biskup, Klaus Schulze-Osthoff, Markus Templin, Nisar P. Malek, Antti Poso & Michael Bitzer, Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 1287 (2024).
Submitting the Paper of the Month:
Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung is using the series “Paper of the Month” to report in an exemplary and hot-off-the-press style on the outstanding work being done by the scientists it supports. We regularly present publications which have recently appeared in especially renowned journals, have emerged from foundation funding and been given appropriate acknowledgment. This is done in the respective categories “Original Paper” and “Review”. In the case of each of these publications, the first author and/or senior author are being funded by the foundation.
We invite all project managers, fellowship recipients and members of graduate study programs to send their work in accordance with the stated criteria as proposal for Paper of the Month to Ms. Anne Asschenfeldt (a.asschenfeldt@ekfs.de).
More Paper of the Month can be found here.
