Real world experience on treatment, outcome and toxicity of crizotinib in patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Targeted therapy has become the standard treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with oncogenic driver genotype. Discovery of the transforming echinoderm microtubule-associated protein like 4 and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) fusion genes in 2007 led to further identification of this subset of NSCLC which does not harbour the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation. ALK rearrangement has been found in about 5–10% of NSCLC. Patients in this subgroup are more frequently younger, never or ex- light smoker, and with adenocarcinoma histology (1,2). ALK-rearranged NSCLC tends to be more aggressive and usually presents at a late stage (3). Brain metastases (BM) and disease progression in the brain are very common and pose clinical challenges (4)