It should be noted that mutations in the EGFR which have been shown to predict sensitivity to tyrosine kinase inhibitors in lung cancer, are very rarely seen in colorectal cancer (32). A search for other biomarkers have revealed mixed results with some studies showing BRAF mutations to predict lack of Selleckchem ABT378 response (33) while others link BRAF mutations to prognosis but not response to EGFR inhibitor therapy (25). EGFR expression was initially thought Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to be necessary for the efficacy of EGFR inhibitor therapy. The initial trials with EGFR inhibitors were therefore restricted to patients with tumors expressing EGFR.

A retrospective review and a phase II trial found responses to therapy present in patients with tumors with low or no EGFR expression and therefore suggested that expression of EGFR should not be used to select patients who would be eligible for targeted blockade (34,35). EGFR gene copy number Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical affects clinical outcomes in EGFR inhibitor treated patients in some but not all studies and remains controversial. A recent meta-analysis did show increased EGFR copy number to be associated with increased OS in patients receiving EGFR inhibitors as second-line therapy (HR 0.60, 95% CI, 0.47-0.75) but not as first-line therapy so this matter is still under investigation (36). However, given that increased copy number usually correlates with higher EGFR expression by immunohistochemistry, it Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical is possible that EGFR copy number will not have a significant

impact on outcome related to EGFR blockade. A large number of patients with mCRC whose tumors show absence of KRAS mutations are non-responders. A systematic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical review of 8 studies published in 2008 calculated the sensitivity and specificity of KRAS testing and found KRAS mutations to have a specificity of 0.93 but a sensitivity of 0.47, demonstrating the need for further predictive biomarkers for patients with KRAS wild-type Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical tumors (37). The EGAPP Working Group recently published recommendations for use of KRAS testing to determine likelihood

of benefit with EGFR inhibitor therapy. They concluded that while sufficient evidence is available to support the predictability of KRAS mutations in codon 12 and 13, evidence is inadequate for less frequent KRAS mutations (such as in codon 61). There is also some controversy about codon 13 that will be discussed later in this review. Furthermore, they recommend against selleck compound testing for BRAF, NRAS, PIK3CA and loss of expression of PTEN or AKT proteins as insufficient evidence exists to use these to guide EGFR inhibitor treatment decisions (38). The concordance of KRAS mutational testing between the primary tumor and metastatic sites was recently reviewed in a meta-analysis looking at 19 publications with 986 paired primary and distant metastases. The study found a high concordance rate of 94.1% (95% CI, 88.3-95.0%) between primary tumor and metastatic sites while the concordance between primary tumor and lymph node metastasis was lower at 81.