The Research Plan of Taiwan Precision Medicine

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the top three most common cancers in Taiwan. Targetable driver mutations in NSCLC are more prevalent in Asian population compared to those in Western population, which offers chances to apply suitable targeted therapies worldwide. For patients who failed to the treatment of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), the genetic mutations from next-generation sequencing (NGS) reports can serve as the reference of treatment selection. Moreover, the expression of PD-1/PD-L1 serves as a helpful indicator for the response of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). On the other hand, patients with wild-type EGFR/ALK mutations and PD-L1-negative NSCLC who received chemotherapy had relative poorer survival than those received suitable targeted therapies and ICIs. To further elucidate the underlying molecular genomic aberrations, as well as the clinical demographics and therapeutic outcomes in above subpopulations, it is necessary to have a national, multi-centers and population-focused research project to collect data completely. Tumor tissue will be collected from advanced NSCLC patients with wild-type EGFR/ALK or with EGFR/ALK mutation after resistant to TKIs for next-generation sequencing analysis in a platform of data storage and sharing. The purpose of the precision medicine project is to establish tumor molecular profiling of specific NSCLC populations in Taiwan, to facilitate patients to have corresponding potential targeted therapeutics and suitable clinical trials, and to extend the median overall survival.